Silence
by TinyElephant
Summary: ME3 SPOILERS. Post-Destroy. There's no room for war heroes in peace time. A shattered, exhausted Shepard expected to die. Vega and Cortez, the only ones left of her old crew, won't let her.
1. Chapter 1

No one knows what to do with a twice-dead, still-alive war hero who discharges herself from hospital. Her name is more than ironic now: Commander Shepard, lost without her flock.

There were murmurings of award ceremonies and interviews to be broadcast over every possible channel as soon as she was released, but on Hackett's last visit he took one look at her and dismissed all the suggestions. She's been officially retired from active duty, not that she cares. Her brain still rattles in her skull and moving more than one finger at a time seems like an impossible task. Miranda says her coordination will improve, over time.

Earth holds an award ceremony for her anyway, in her absence, but Shepard closes her eyes and sleeps through the international broadcast. Who the hell cares. Let them have their holiday.

She's given a wad of papers to sign, and bland clothing that bears no resemblance to her beloved blue uniform or the battered, cracked armour they cut off her unconscious corpse four or five weeks ago. Most of the doctors want to keep her in longer, unnerved at how quickly her shattered ribs, dislocated and torn shoulder-blade, fractured cheekbones, chipped eye socket and litany of internal injuries have healed. Miranda's renewed dedication along with Hackett's free access to Alliance resources, has paid off.

Miranda leaves that morning with barely a goodbye, having atoned for whatever sin she felt she had to atone for. Chakwas is run off her feet, but manages to drop by while Shepard is clumsily signing paperwork, testing three new fingers. The older woman hugs Shepard, gingerly, and says, "Don't be a stranger. Go home and rest. Learn to sit still again. And don't let those Alliance bigwigs put you back into action for at least six months."

Shepard nods, and smiles because Chakwas needs it. A place for a person to stop and catch her breath. She limps slowly through the still-destroyed hospital corridors, finds her way out the front door. There are stretchers on the floors throughout the hospital, the stench of infection barely held at bay by the determined cleaning and disinfection control team striding around in a haze of exhaustion and soapy fumes. No one pays much attention to the gaunt, shadowed, scarred civilian picking her way across bloodstained floor and piles of rubble to the exit. Shepard carries a bag; some asari nurse gave it to her after the paperwork was complete. She assumes it's clothes. She thinks about dropping it on the floor, leaving it to some hopeful. But it's good to have something in her hand, so she holds on.

The sun is blinding. She cringes away from it, feels her biotic implant throb at the base of her skull momentarily. Weks indoors, under shadowy, unreliable lighting and she can barely see straight. How the hell is she supposed to do anything?

"Hey, Lola."

She drops her hand from her eyes, blinking against the glare of concrete and sunlight. Vega. He's leaning against the stone fence, between the cars. He looks exactly the same as always: same grey shirt, under a leather jacket that is almost too small across the shoulders. New scar on his face, running straight down his forehead above his right eye. If she didn't know better, she'd say he hadn't been through the last sprint toward Harbinger's furious red beams at all.

"You look like shit," he says, and Shepard looks away from the genuine shock in his voice. He pushes off from the wall and walks toward her. She doesn't move, thinking of Miranda's lessons in breathing through the pain.

"Want me to take that?" Vega takes the bag anyway, without her having to say anything. She looks at him, and notices that he has lost his old familiar frank gaze; he shifts under her study. "Chakwas told me you were getting out today. Figured you'd need somewhere to stay. Me and Esteban have a place a few blocks away. Okay to walk?"

They're barely out of the pockmarked hospital car park before she realises Vega is walking ridiculously slowly, waiting for her to catch up. _Breathe once deep in, hold, let out. Don't use your ribs: breathe in your stomach. It's going to hurt. A lot. You'll have to get used to that. We don't have enough painkillers to give you more, now you're past the critical stage. I'm sorry, Shepard._ Thanks, Miranda.

Her ribs are burning, her lungs crying out for relief and they've just turned down the side street. Vega is deliberately not watching her. To distract herself from the pain, Shepard raises her head and drags her eyes away from her feet, looking around. Earth.

Earth is a bloody disaster.

There's a park behind the hospital – or was. Now it's a Reaper graveyard, surrounded by the jagged teeth of broken walls and crashed ships. Rust-red legs are stretched out like a dead animal. The red eye doesn't glow any more, but still stares straight at Shepard. She stops in her tracks, and looks at it for a long, long time.

Vaguely she's aware of James talking, saying something, but she doesn't hear. She can't hear too well from her right ear. She just stares at what she did, the destruction she's wrought. The pain at the base of her skull flares up. She realises that her hands are clenched, haloed in blue energy. In slow, careful movements, she uncurls each finger and allows the energy to dissipate. The headache crashes down her spine like the richocet of a shotgun.

Vega touches her shoulder: she jumps and jerks her gaze away from the dead Reaper. For a moment they're both caught off-guard and she sees the tiredness and guilt and concern in his eyes. Something painful flickers across his face and he drops his hand. "Esteban is coming to pick us up. It's on his way, he's just finished a supply run. Got use of the shuttle whenever he wants it, lucky bastard ..."

He talks on, while Shepard finds a seat on a pile of concrete and wire, and stares at her feet. She doesn't really listen to Vega, but listens for the words he's carefully not saying. _What the hell did they do you what happened on the Citadel Shepard come back you're freaking me out say something Commander, Lola, say something. Are you there?_ They used to have such snark-filled conversations in the long months while he shadowed her everywhere the inquiry took her.

The sun is still too bright. Her fingers are shaking, so she locks them together, rests them on her knees and watches the outlines of her soft black shoes, counts the stitches on the leather. Someone else wore these shoes once. She used to have a whole cabin to herself. Fish. She never liked fish.

"Lola."

The familiar husky buzz of the UT-47 makes her realise she's probably been staring at her feet for a while. A bitingly familiar blue and white shuttle is parked in front of her. If she'd been in a battlefield they would have killed her five times over by now. Wake up, Shepard. You're not dead yet. Even though you are. Should be.

The door slides open and Cortez steps out. He's thinner, sunburnt, a raw scar poking out from a bandage on his right arm. He still wears an Alliance uniform. The same weariness she's seen on Vega's face is etched deeper in his bright blue eyes. She manages a smile, because that's what you do when you see people again, isn't it? She forgot to smile at Vega earlier.

Last time she saw Steve, he'd just dropped her into the AA guns range and had taken off to avoid air attacks. If she listens closely enough, she can hear the crack and rattle of the guns, the furious roar of the Reaper they were fighting, the nightmare call of the banshee closing in on her prey. Long time ago. Probably wasn't far from this place.

Vega helps her up, tosses her bag into the shuttle. Cortez smiles at her, through the deep concern he's terrible at hiding, and salutes. "Good to see you again, Commander."

Shepard nods, and takes a seat in the shuttle. She closes her eyes against the memories ghosting through the shuttle. Kaidan and Liara, Garrus coughing to get Wrex's attention, EDI experimenting with pain responses in her new body. She's aware of Vega sitting next to her, the bag between them. He and Cortez exchange some words, Vega asking about some communications centre up north, Cortez mentioning the mass relays. Shepard opens her eyes.

"... think that's why they can rebuild so quickly. Liara went back to Mars yesterday. She says they're close to a breakthrough."

"She's said that the last three times," Vega rumbles.

Cortez chuckles, without mirth, and says, "Any hope is better than none."

Shepard closes her eyes. Cortez is wrong. Hope that the Normandy is stranded somewhere, thrown through a mass relay and lost in the explosion, unable to get back ... hope is torture, keeping her inexoriably alive.

Chakwas had broken the news to her, on the third day that Shepard was conscious for more than half an hour. "Jeff and EDI left the battle, and came to find you. They found Kaidan and Javik, and headed to the Citadel, but ... the Citadel blew up. We lost a lot of ships. The Normandy was so close to the Citadel, Hackett tells me they think the Normandy was caught up in it." Chakwas hesitated, then added softly, "The mass relays aren't operational, Shepard. Liara tells me they're intact, just ... not working. There's a project to restart them, and the asari have a lot of information – and with all the fleets here, everyone is keen to rebuild them, to go home – but ..." She made a futile gesture with one hand, and said, "I'm sorry, Shepard. The Normandy is gone."

No reason to hope. No reason to live, yet live she does. She came back to Earth to die. Damned Lazarus. They couldn't let Commander Shepard die, could they? They need to trot her out for memorial services, funerals, make her walk around and inspire people ... didn't she earn a quiet, peaceful death? Come on. Surely she did.

Shepard's fists clench on her knees. Vega and Cortez are still talking. She closes her eyes, and throws her head back against the hard wall of the shuttle, again and again. Fresh pain blossoms against her neck, a nice little contrast from the well-set fire burning down her side, the deeper agony hovering around her biotic implant.

"Hey! Shepard!" On the third bang, her skull crunches against something softer. Vega swears, his hand between the wall and her head. Shepard refuses to open her eyes, but leans forward and buries her face in her hands. Vega swears again, this time in his own language, and his hand drops to her shoulder, rubbing it helplessly.

"We're nearly there," Cortez says, voice strained.


	2. Chapter 2

There was something in her discharge paperwork about being assigned an apartment in what is left of some northern London suburb, but she can't remember where or why she should care. She follows Cortez out of the shuttle, skirting a large, ugly stain on the pavement. Above them is a row of battered houses, holes in the rooves here and there, walls torn apart by the tell-tale scorchmarks of Reaper guns. At least around here all the dead bodies have been removed. There are no living people. Where are all the people?

Cortez walks straight past a twisted hunk of metal that was surely once the wing of an Alliance fighter, and heads into one of the few remaining houses still with a door. The windows are taped over with plastic, rubble piled high in the tiny front garden. Shepard follows him in, aware of Vega testing his hand gingerly. She thinks she should apologise.

The flat is spartan. Someone elses table and mismatched chairs sit in the centre of a long, narrow room, an ugly mustard-yellow couch propped up against the wall, a brick replacing one missing foot. On one wall is a small fridge, and a stovetop stands beside it. Vega points to the stove proudly. "Look what Esteban found us. Wired it up to run off solar, so we've got hot food. If we can, y'know, find something to cook. Man, I miss Omega's market sometimes."

"We've got some dried rations and minced protein," Cortez adds. "The refugee centre in town has organised full supply runs. We should be able to hold out until the relays are opened again."

"You hungry?" Vega asks.

Shepard shakes her head and leans against the wall. She's discovered that the too-tight jeans she was given at the hospital have pockets: a good place for her hands, her useless hands. At least it hides the trembling. Cortez busies himself with fetching a bottle of water from the fridge. Vega takes her bag and disappears down the hallway.

"I'll have to head out again, still got a few runs to do before my shift ends," Cortez says, but sits down at the table. Shepard watches him, wonders how he's survived. This ... this sickening pretense at normality – Vega and Cortez sharing a flat, working on the reconstruction, dead Reapers in the back yard. She thinks briefly of the Normandy, of the active chatter and work and the awful, driving purpose behind everything they did. All the talking she did: talking, talking, talking. Convincing this salarian to cure that, this krogan not to punch that turian. Talking about everyone's personal problems. Talking about her own. She shies away from the thought: too close to the knowledge that Kaidan is not coming back. He didn't lose her this time.

Vega reappears, and says, "Have a seat, Commander."

She does so, because the past months have been doctor after doctor telling her do this, do that, sit here, say aah, touch this finger to that thumb, tell me what you remember. It's been ... oddly easy, taking orders. Hackett visited several times, desperate to know what happened on the Citadel. She opened her mouth to tell him, on the third visit, but instead of speaking she just saw Anderson, eyes closed, her bullet in his side. She kept touching her side, where a bullet had lodged, until Hackett took her hand and just held it. They sat, in silence, and Shepard stared up at the patched hospital ceiling and did not speak or cry.

Hackett left after an hour, surprising her with the quietness in his voice. Shepard thinks, now, that perhaps he was envious of her right to silence. He's still on the front line, still directing the rebuilding effort, the recovery, search and rescue, mass relay reconstruction. No rest.

If she were a braver person, she'd get over this ... whatever it is ... and go and help him. Pull on her uniform, ignore the way it would hang on her skinny frame now, slide on the old Commander Shepard mask and do her duty.

To hell with duty.

Duty took her to hell anyway.

Vega and Cortez are keeping up some kind of banter, talking about the rebuilding efforts in awkward, pause-studded fits and starts. Vega mentions Garrus. She looks up from her brown study of the pockmarked tabletop. Vega notices her interest.

"You heard about Scars, Lola?"

She shakes her head. Vega and Cortez look at each other, a brief unhappy glance.

"He was killed in the final push," Cortez says, at last. "We found his body just after you'd ... reached the beam to the Citadel and killed the Reapers."

Shepard takes the news calmly, because she's known all along. If Garrus had been alive, he would have been at the hospital, and Chakwas said nothing about him being on the Normandy. No Shepard without Vakarian. They got that right. She's no Shepard now. The weight of Garrus' death settles into her heart, alongside the loss of Kaidan and the Normandy, everything that gave her something balanced to stand on, to say 'this is me'.

"I'm sorry," Vega says, "I thought you'd know. _Penedejo_ doctors refused to let us see you."

"I kept in contact with Karin," Cortez added, "But it's been ... it's been rough."

Shepard listens to them talking about the reconstruction, how they deliberately moved in here because both of them wanted some relative peace. She listens to Cortez carefully not saying that they moved here, into an 'unsecured' section of the city because Chakwas told them Shepard would need to be away from the public eye. The reconstruction is pitifully slow, with half of Earth dead and the rest still struggling through semblances of funerals and disease control and recovery. Refugee camps are overflowing. Rebuilding is the only thing keeping people from going mad.

Vega says something about the mass relays. "Hackett set up a task force down south. The turians have set up camp there. Asari, too. Hell, most aliens are off working on the mass relays."

"Can't blame them," Cortez says, tapping one finger against the table. "They've saved our planet for us, now they want to go home and rebuild theirs."

"Would be nice to have a little more help in the clean-up, though," Vega replies. He stretches his arms out, cracking his knuckles. "One minute I'm a soldier saving the galaxy, next I'm digging through rubble for salvage."

Cortez leaves, heading back to his work. Vega begins to cook something, the smell of frying filling the sour little kitchenette. He sings, baritone off-key and in a muddled half-Spanish half-English mishmash. It's a peculiarly refreshing sound. He used to sing like that when he was in a good mood, Shepard thinks, usually when he won at Skyllian Five and she had to hand over her last few credits so she could win them back from him in the next round.

Shepard stands up and walks out of the kitchen, her hands still bunched up in her pockets. She wanders down the hallway, finds the room Vega tossed her hospital bag into. There's a mattress on the floor, even two sheets and blanket. No pillow.

Inside the bag lie her dogtags, at the very top. She doesn't touch them, but stares at the battered N7 logo, then carefully tilts the bag, shakes the top open. The tags slide out and land with a thump on the ugly, stained old carpet. She kicks them across the floor with one foot.

Beneath the tags is a uniform. Navy blue, sleeves unrolled, relatively unwrinkled. She pulls it out, refolds it in slow, shaky movements and tucks it at the foot of the mattress. At the bottom of the bag is a stack of paperwork. She pulls it all out and reads over the top page, squinting at the wavering lines. Odd to be reading paper again. She'd forgotten how much was still used on Earth.

IF YOU FEEL NAUSEA, HEADACHES, PAIN, FEVER OR SUFFER ANY KIND OF NOSEBLEED PLEASE

Shepard drops the papers back into the bag, puts it at the foot of the mattress next to the uniform, kicks her shoes off, lies down and closes her eyes. She breathes into the pain, and waits for it to stop.

She sleeps for a month.


	3. Chapter 3

Some nights she wakes up and thinks she's on the Normandy and they're just about to storm the Illusive Man's base. It's always that night, and at first she can't figure out why. She closes her eyes and goes back to sleep, curled in on the steady pain. Sometimes she's not sure if it's physical, mental or emotional pain. Maybe there's no difference any more.

"Shepard. Hey. Lola. Wake up. You need to eat."

She doesn't.

The dreams of the Illusive Man's base fade. Now she wakes up with a silent scream lost in her throat, biotics crackling against imaginary Reapers. Vega almost always appears a few seconds later. Perhaps she does scream out loud after all. Sometimes he's awake, sometimes he's half-asleep. He calms her down, awkwardly at first and gradually, as the nightmares continue for days on end, with more confidence. He sits on the floor and holds her hand, something tangible and real in the shadowy, discordant dreams. Even with her skin burning with dangerous blue energy, he still reaches for her wrist, tells her that she can go back to sleep because it's all done, all finished. Go back to sleep, Lola.

So she does, because taking orders is easy when there's nothing else to do.

One day she sleeps so heavily that she's barely aware of Vega trying to wake her, trying and trying to get some reaction. She lies there in a heavy stupor, ears ringing with Harbinger's last blast, and can't bring herself to move or respond.

Chakwas appears sometime that day, fingers gentle on Shepard's forehead and wrist and throat. "Just let her sleep, for as long as she can. I don't think she's stopped moving for over a year. Try and get some food into her, otherwise I'll have to insist she comes back to hospital so I can put a drip into her."

"Maybe she should go back, doc. I'm no good at this ... nursing thing," Vega rumbles.

Chakwas chuckles, her voice fading as she walks back down the hallway. "You're doing fine, Mr Vega. Is she doing the rehabilitation exercises?"

"Uh ... no?"

Chakwas sighs. "We sent her out with some exercise notes. She has to start rehabilitation."

The voices fade. No, she won't start rehabilitation. There is no such thing.

The next time she wakes, Vega brings food and sits on the floor beside the mattress until she eats it. The protein sticks in her mouth; she holds it between her teeth like a child, wondering what to do with it. He keeps trying, patiently. In one of her more lucid moments, that he's saving his own unappetizing, rationed meals until she wakes up; that he's feeding her the rare, fresher-tasting morsels.

They eat together, she more out of guilt that he is not eating than any interest in food for herself. With the food it's harder to sleep, but still she refuses to wake up, even when she stumbles to the bathroom and stands under the cold, indecisive shower for too long.

Vega talks while he eats, telling her about the rebuilding – how Hackett has split the fleet, standing down more soldiers from active duty and turning them over to the recovery effort, how Liara has found more data on Mars and the asari, salarian and turian scientists are now working full-tilt on the mass relay technology. How today is two months to the day of the final Hammer assault. Cortez is away for a week, flying shorter scavenging ops for the turians working on the mass relays.

"Seems the biggest thing we need now is shrinks. Everyone's seen too much. Think we're all turning into each other's therapists, now. Guess we didn't think that one through, huh."

Shepard closes her eyes and lets Vega talk. If she just listens to the rise and fall of his voice, if she strips away the tiredness and frustration roiling beneath the surface of his words and forgets what he's actually saying about rebuilding and recovery – if she manages all of that without her brain twisting into another headache, she can almost imagine herself standing at the requisitions table in the Normandy's shuttle bay while Vega and Cortez bicker and trade quips over various mechanical marvels. Almost. Then the headache kicks in, and she falls back to sleep to dream of Kaidan dying.

The scariest moments are the total blackness. Chakwas warned her about them, told Shepard that her brain had suffered too many concussions, endured too much stress and dehydration and downright fear, not to mention the unsettling Prothean beacons, the Thorian-descended mind-meld, and whatever the hell happened on the Citadel that Chakwas didn't even know about. All of it, combined with the bleakness of a reality she had not been prepared to live for, means she wakes up and realises she's on her feet, standing somewhere in the silent little flat staring at nothing.

The third time it happens, she wakes to find herself standing in the kitchen. It's sometime after midnight, Vega presumably asleep in his poky little room. A cold draft whirls down the hallway, pushing through the uneven gaps around the front door, wrapping around Shepard's bare feet.

She is holding a knife. Shepard stares at the cool blade for long minutes, her fingers wrapped around the plastic handle. It's just a bread knife, blunt with a bent tip. She feels like someone punched her.

"James," she says, but her voice is so hoarse it's barely a whisper. She tries again. "Vega." Damn it. She used to be able to shout orders across a brute-filled, husk-ridden battlefield. "James!"

There's a thump and a curse from Vega's room. She doesn't dare move, but stands in the kitchen and waits for him to find her. He goes to her room first; she listens to him hurry along the hall and into the kitchen.

"What's up?" he asks, the sleep thick in his voice. She turns around, and holds the knife out to him, handle first. In the shadowy kitchen she can't see his face, but his voice sharpens. "What the fuck, Lola." He takes the knife, quickly, then reaches for her hands. Satisfied, he swears again, tosses the knife back into the drawer, tugs the entire drawer out of the bench and disappears back down to his room.

Shepard leans against the kitchen table and wraps her arms around her ribs, pressing in until the pain flares up again. Some vestiges of her pride tell her she's behaving like a subordinate, not the Commander. She is too tired to deal with it, so she doesn't.

Vega reappears, radiating anger. "Don't do that again, Shepard. Don't. You call me if you ever feel like that, okay?"

She wants to tell him it wasn't her intention, at all, that she's far too determined to ever let herself slip so far; that her pride is still stronger than her fury at being denied her choice to die on the Citadel, saving humanity for everyone else. She just nods, and digs her fingers into her half-healed ribs for a moment longer. Then she says, clearly, "Fuck this," and stalks back to her room.

When Cortez finally returns from his delayed mission, Shepard is up. She ghosts around the house, sometimes standing in the open front door and staring out at the unchanging piles of destroyed houses and ship parts. The lack of people in this deserted section of the city is exactly what she needs, she thinks. No one to stare or ask favours or tell her she's their only hope. She likes to make sure that the huge, dark outline of the dead Reaper three streets away hasn't moved.

Shepard is standing in the doorway on the day a bulky, red figure rounds the far corner and marches down the street. She watches it approach, leaning against the doorframe. Her ears are ringing: they're always ringing when she stands, these days.

"Shepard!" Wrex opens his arms, his booming voice echoing down the quiet street. Shepard takes a shaky step forward as the krogan hurries up to her. He has two fresh injuries to his headplate, one a terrible gaping explosion that reminds her acutely of Garrus' face on Omega when she was three seconds too slow. Wrex grips her arms, and if a krogan can look happy, he does.

"You look like you've been spat out by a thresher maw," he says, peering into her face. "What've you done to yourself? Are there thresher maws on Earth?"

She smiles, and somehow manages to give him an awkward hug, her arms barely extending around his broad shoulders, her face pressed into his armour. The krogan grunts in surprise, poking her shoulder when she steps back. "You getting soft on me, Shepard?"

She nods, and smiles again.

"Heard about the Normandy," Wrex goes on. "It's not right, Shepard. Not right. Been down working on the mass relay technology. Not that I know much about science stuff. Krogan are good at building, though. Wouldn't think it. Would've visited earlier but those damned Alliance softbellies refused to tell me where you were. Something about media coverage. A shotgun to the head worked on them, hah!"

Wrex is so unchanged, so normal, and so obviously delighted to see her, Shepard can almost breathe.

"Mr Krogan!"

"Hey, Vega. Still ugly?"

"Hey, you ain't in no position to call anyone ugly."

They go inside, and sit at the table. Shepard nearly laughs at the ridiculous sight of Wrex being offered tea by Vega. Cortez is eyeing the fragile chairs with some concern as the krogan sits down. Wrex doesn't stay long, but talks freely. He's frustrated at still being on earth, two and a half months after the end of the war. But, he says, red eyes flicking to Shepard, he figures the krogan still owe a favour or two. Best to get those favours out of the way before they head back to Tuchanka and start breeding. Vega and Wrex exchange a few crude jokes, making them all laugh. Shepard manages to smile.

Shepard stays still as long as she can, forces herself to enjoy Wrex's visit, to smile at his jokes and nod at the right places. More information on the progress of Earth. She doesn't want to hear it. She scrapes at her left thumbnail with her right index finger, pulling at the skin around her nail in little motions under the table. Last time she saw Wrex he'd just given a rousing speech to his krogans while banshees called out their death threats above them. He'd called Shepard his sister, and she went off to kill the Reapers.

The ringing in her ears fades, replaced by the soft thrum of blood rushing through her head. She stands, slowly, pats Wrex on the shoulder and heads back to her room. Lying down, the exhaustion sweeps over her; physical, mental, what does it matter. She can still hear Wrex talking in the kitchen, his rough voice cutting through the flimsy walls.

"What the hell happened to her? That's not the Shepard I know."

"Hell if we know," Vega replies. "Chakwas says she's in shock, taking her time to get out of it. All I know is, she doesn't talk, barely eats, can't walk straight. She still won't even look anyone in the eye. We don't even know what happened to her on the Crucible. Citadel. Whatever."

"It's not right," Wrex says.

Cortez's softer voice is hard to hear. "She lost too much. The Normandy is still gone, Major Alenko and half the crew with it. We don't know if it crashed or ... exploded, or what. There's no resolution in that. No way to grieve and let go."

"She needs to be out shooting things," Wrex says, "Shooting things is the best cure."

There's a short silence, then Cortez says, "We'll look after her. She's done enough for everyone else. Way I see it, if she wants to sleep for six months and never talk again, she's earned the right for whatever she wants."

Wrex laughs. "Alliance brass won't let her. Hackett's got them off her back for now, but that won't last."

He always was sharp, Shepard thinks, and rolls over to ease the pain in her right side. She listens to Wrex stand, his chair cracking as it's released from his weight. He farewells the other two and disappears. The house seems uneasily light without his presence, as it if might tip over and roll away in the wind. Shepard closes her eyes, pulling one forearm over her face.

"Hey, Lola. You need anything?"

She pulls her arm away and looks up. Vega is standing over her mattress. He crouches down as she opens her eyes. Shepard shakes her head, slightly. It's hard to keep her eyes open against the deep exhaustion. Gently, Vega smooths her hair away from her face. "Okay. I'll be in the next room if you need anything."

Man, when did her prison guard turn into her parent?

She sleeps, again, but wakes only a few minutes later. Vega's breathing is elevated in the next room. From the sound of it he's doing pushups. Shepard stands, shakily, and walks back out to the hallway, past his room. Cortez is still in the kitchen. Wrex's words sit right between her eyes. _Shooting things is the best cure._

In the room opposite the kitchen – the storage room, with a big hole in one wall tarpaulined over, the boxes of gear are almost empty. Vega's armour is stacked neatly on one table. Only a few things remain on a shelf: Vega's shotgun, a sniper rifle she doesn't recognise and two pistols.

Shepard traces a finger over one cool pistol grip. The shotgun is a mean beast. She and Vega had often worked on their shutgun mods together, bickering over the various rebuilds the way he and Cortez had often bickered over shuttles. Tali would join in, but her shotgun had more technological upgrades – heck, she'd even managed to attach an omniblade generator to it.

Quietly, with fingers that used to do this every day and now can't even figure out how to stop shaking, Shepard begins to take the pistols apart. Piece by piece, stripping them away – heatsink, barrel, trigger – until all the little parts lie in a scattered half-circle around her. She can do this. She can control this. Breathe into the pain. The sniper rifle is more difficult. She is getting tired, knees pressing into the boxes for support.

There's a noise at the doorway. She doesn't look up, but keeps pulling the rifle apart. Her fingers slip on the tougher components. It's too heavy for her to lift comfortably. In frustration she bangs the unloaded rifle on the boxes.

"Want a hand?" Cortez is standing next to her. He takes over, surer fingers dismantling the rifle in half the time. She leans against him, shoulder to shoulder, and watches.

When it's done, they look at Vega's shotgun. Cortez sweeps the taken-apart pistols and sniper rifle into an open box and closes the lid. "I'll get him to put that somewhere else," he says, softly. Shepard just nods, and shuffles back to her room. She wants to take a sledgehammer to the gun pieces, but she doesn't have the strength and she's had enough of destroying things.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day she sleeps erratically, keeps waking with biotics flaring into the shadowy room. She knows every crack on the walls, every discoloured spot on the carpet. Joker didn't have enough medication for Vrolik's Syndrome. They were running low on the last push. She stands, dresses slowly, and drifts into the kitchen. Vega and Cortez are having breakfast, shovelling down fresh rations eagerly.

"Hey, Shepard."

"Morning, Commander." Cortez still calls her commander, out of politeness or for some other reason, she doesn't know.

She opens the fridge of her own accord, takes out one of the silver-wrapped protein bars and sits down at the table opposite Cortez. The two men have gone back to their own conversation.

"You're still going on about the Mako, Mr Vega?"

"Come on, she's a beauty. Drive a Mako through any situation. Anywhere."

"Except you can't even drop her on anything less than sixty meters from orbit. It's old, Mr Vega. Outdated. Like your opinions."

Vega is crowing with laughter, mouth full of protein.

"We did a twenty-metre drop with the Mako on Ilos, once."

The two men go silent, eyes swinging around to stare at her.

Shepard unwraps the protein bar carefully, and adds, "Kaidan called it a suicide run. Nearly crashed into a wall."

Vega is the first to recover, swallowing and saying, "Seriously? On Ilos?"

"Bet Joker didn't like that," Cortez says.

She admires their acting abilities. Shepard takes a bite of the bar, chews, swallows. "It worked," she says, and falls back into her silence.

A few days later, Hackett appears on their doorstep. He's in full uniform, alone. Shepard is sitting at the kitchen table, hands in her pockets, staring at the wall. Cortez is out working, Vega doing sit-ups down the hall. Shepard stands, and remembers to salute, but Hackett waves it away. He takes a seat at the kitchen table opposite and just looks at her.

"Wrex was right," he says at last. "I'm recommending you see a therapist, Shepard, and I'd like you back in hospital to continue rehabilitation."

"No." The word is the loudest thing she's said for three months. "I'm done."

"Shepard –"

"No. Sir."

"I hate to ask it of you, Shepard. Allers says that you could just make a few appearances to boost morale. I know it's rough, Commander, but Earth still needs you."

"No," she says again, aware that Vega is standing in the doorway. "I am done. I'm a shadow of the war, a reminder of everything we're all trying to forget. I'd be no more use to you than one of the dead Reapers outside."

He's not convinced. Suddenly desperate, Shepard says in a good mimicry of her old, scare-a-krogan tone, "Look at me, sir. If you put me in front of a camera, the galaxy will see a broken, tired woman with no reason to live. That's not hope, sir, that's defeat."

Hackett is silent for a moment, and she notices how exhausted he looks – but how the lines of near-failure have gone from his shoulders and face. He has hope again. "Understandable, Commander. I'll find someone else for the media to get their claws into."

"Thank you, sir," she says, voice rough.

Hackett pauses, then says in a different tone, "There's something else, Shepard. We need ... confirmation. Did Anderson make it to the Citadel with you?"

Breathe deep, through your stomach, breathe into the pain. "Yes."

"Was he ..."

"Alive?" Shepard's voice drops. "At first." She leans forward and puts her hands over her face.

"Thank you, Shepard. We had to know."

Shepard nods, beneath her hands. Hackett stands and is about to leave when Shepard drops her hands and says, "Sir – tell Sanders – Kahlee Sanders – that he was thinking of her."

Hackett looks as though he has aged ten years. "I will." He heads to the door, where Vega is standing to attention. "And Shepard," Hackett adds over his shoulder, "The scientists tell me the mass relays should be operational in two months. When that happens, finding the Normandy is our first priority."

She can't find anything to say, but looks him in the eye for the first time, and manages a smile. Sometimes she wakes up and thinks she's back on the cold slab in the Cerberus station, and her first thoughts are an echo of those other first thoughts – _Kaidan where is Kaidan the Normandy did we get everyone out Joker is Joker okay Kaidan where are you._

Vega follows Hackett out in the hallway. Shepard listens – seems all she does is overhear conversations these days.

"Lieutenant Vega, you still working on the rebuilding around here?"

"I was, sir, but ... the Commander needed a little help."

"She does," Hackett says. "Her doctors tell me they want her back in hospital for rehabilitation. Apparently she's meant to be going there every week."

"No, sir," Vega says. Shepard raises her eyebrows: Vega saying no to an Admiral? "Put her in a hospital and she'll go mad. Cortez and I've got this, sir. We're her crew."

Hackett hesitates, then says, "Alright. Carry on, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir."

The Admiral leaves, and Vega wanders back into the kitchen. Shepard looks up at him, and notices that his eyes don't shift away from hers any more. "Thank you," she says.

Vega waves a hand in the air, says something she doesn't understand in Spanish, and takes a seat. He kicks his boots onto the tabletop and says, "So. Done with the Alliance, Lola."

She yawns, rubs a hand over one battered cheekbone. "Mm."

They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, then Shepard says, reclaiming a little more of her old voice, "How're you doing, Lieutenant?"

Vega looks surprised. "Me? Fine, Commander. Fine."

"You shouldn't be ... sitting here, looking after me. Hackett's right. I need to start rehabilitation." The word is so foul she spits it out. More doctors, more needles and eyes staring. She just wants to hide in this house and wait until the gaping, tearing black hole in her chest dissipates, and with it her memories of Kaidan and hope for the future. Maybe she shouldn't have taken the pistols apart. She wonders briefly if Cortez did get Vega to hide his shotgun as he'd promised.

"Way I see it, Commander, Admiral Anderson set me to guard you. That's still my active orders."

Shepard swallows, and says, "Thank you, James."

Vega is silent for a moment, then says with a tinge of frustration, "Hell, what else can I do, anyway? I'm a soldier. I can't do anything to rebuild. This planet is ... too dead."

Shepard contemplates that for a moment. He's right. "You think we didn't save Earth?"

"Oh, we saved it, alright. Just ..."

"Not for us," Shepard finishes.

"Yeah," Vega says, quietly. "Yeah." The silence stretches, then he adds, "Be good if they can find the Normandy."

Shepard's voice disappears again.

"_Dios. _Fucking Reapers," Vega heads back to his room.

Shepard sits and stares at the wall for an hour or three, then realises that her hands need something. She stands and begins to clear up the little kitchen, moving in unaccustomed, stop-start motions from sink to stovetop to fridge, wiping down the table, rearranging the few food boxes in the fridge. When there's nothing else for her to lift, dust and replace five times over, she limps back to her room and sits on the bed. She thinks about sleeping, but it won't do any good, this time. She doesn't want to think, doesn't want to wake up yet. But she can't stop it, as she couldn't stop Harbinger's oncoming attack or Thessia's fall or the blast that took out half this street she's wound up living in.

She needs to start moving again.

As much as she hates it, returning to life is the best thing she can do. Shepard is slightly ashamed of what she sees as her self-indulgent lapse into nothingness, but somewhere behind the must-be-doing-something guilt that kept her alive long enough to destroy the Reapers, she knows that the nothingness was all that kept her alive, these past few months without Kaidan or the Normandy or anything she fought to keep. Her mind still goes blank, flashing strange images of Prothean history or short moments of old missions; Anderson's last words to her on the Citadel, or the way a Cerberus helmet would spatter with brain matter and blood when she made the perfect headshot, or Garrus walking into the conference room after she found him on Omega, armour still bloody and face held together by tape and turian pride.

Piece by piece, her mind recovers. She can't shake the grief, and she doesn't want to. But she begins to live.

Shepard drags out the papers Chakwas gave her and reluctantly follows the rehabilitation instructions, using Vega as her personal trainer and sergeant combined. He's eager to help, glad to see her walking around the house with purpose. Her muscles rediscover use, and strength, and with them her energy returns. Cortez keeps bringing news in, more and more as he notices her responding.

In the morning when she limps out from her room and grimaces at the still-unfamiliar sunlight, she even manages to join in the banter Cortez and Vega exchange over the cracked, plastic plates and creative excuses for cutlery.

"Hey, Lola, you ever going to cook breakfast for me? I mean, I've been cooking breakfast for you and Esteban for months, now. And Esteban can't cook, but I _know_ you can."

"No," she mutters, hands pressed over her face. Her biotic implant twinges in the back of her skull, complaining about the brightness. "Shut up and feed me, Vega."

"Don't know why I still hang around," Vega says, and she grins at the cheerful tone and the way the clattering pans ring with good humour. Shepard's spirits rise, inexoriably pressing into the dark edges of the tiredness and guilt and loss tucked somewhere beneath her splintered ribs.

Cortez takes a seat at the table. "No one else would put up with you as a housemate, Mr Vega."

"Yeah, yeah, the reality is you two would be lost without my cooking."

"Can we get breakfast without the talking today?"

"You're like the annoying older brother I never had, Esteban."

"You're definitely the annoying little brother I never had, Vega," Shepard replies, pulling her hands away from her face in time to see James serve up three plates of ... something yellow-brown and vaguely mashlike. "But I think I can put up with you."

After breakfast, the three of them tidy the kitchen in habitual motions: Shepard taking the plates to the sink, Cortez scraping out the pans, Vega packing away the protein ration remains and kicking the chairs back under the table. Shepard turns away from the sink to collect the cutlery and is caught in a sudden realisation that she is part of a family: not the Commander, not the Saviour of the Galaxy or the Butcher of Torfan or the embodiment of Lazarus. She's got a new place as part of this damaged, fractured little family.

She stands at the table and considers the blunt knives they used to eat with. Vega returned the cutlery drawer last week, at Shepard's request. For a moment, standing there, she's aware of Cortez and Vega exchanging glances – she can almost hear their thoughts bouncing between them _is she okay, I thought she was improving, she doesn't done the stare-at-the-wall thing for days now, maybe I should've kept the knives back, Lola, hey, Commander, you alright?_

Shepard picks up the knives, slowly, and drops them into the sink. She's not sure what to do with this revelation. She had a family, and she lost it. The Normandy was her home, with her as the surrogate mother, the leader, the protector. Perhaps she took on too much, claiming so many for her own. Perhaps she should have refused to become so involved in their lives. Knowing that Liara loves turian folk music, and Chakwas has a weakness for the finest brandies in the galaxy, and Joker's pride in his skill as a pilot was the only thing he had until EDI turned up, and Kaidan's fear of losing Shepard again was as deep as her fear of losing him – knowing all of that was too much. She should have stepped back. Falling into the Citadel's beam, defying Harbinger and his brethren again and again ... almost too much. She'd hoped their lives would ground her, but perhaps they just helped tear her apart.

Perhaps that's her cowardice talking.

But this ... Cortez wiping down the table and telling Vega that he'll be late home for dinner, and Vega talking about going for a run, while Shepard moves automatically between table and sink ... perhaps this is just enough, for now.

She waits until there's a pause in their conversation, then turns and leans against the bench, pressing her palms into the edge. "I've never thanked you both for everything you've done for me," she says, quietly. The two men stop moving, looking at her with the attentiveness she was used to claiming every time she walked into the shuttle bay. She swallows, and continues, "You certainly didn't have any requirement to stay, or to keep the media away, or make sure I didn't off myself. And James ... I know you've put everything on hold. I know Chakwas wanted me back at the hospital a long time ago. I can't thank you both enough for keeping me out of there." She pauses again, breathes into the pain and adds, "I don't hold any hope that they'll recover the Normandy, or ... the crew. I should have died on the Citadel, but I didn't. I've seen too many miracles to hope for another."

"Don't lose hope, Lola," Vega says, and to her surprise he slides down the bench and slings an overly-muscled arm around her shoulders. The unfamiliar contact makes her realise how deeply she has cut herself off from everyone, everything. She has not voluntarily touched anyone, friendly or unfriendly, for three months. "The Major's tough. And Joker wouldn't let anyone break his ship."

"We all had a lot to live for," Cortez says, his bright blue eyes shadowed for a moment.

Shepard nods, and searches for the little shreds of pride she has clung to for months. "I know," she says, "I did too. I just ... lost too much in the process."

Vega's broad hand taps her shoulder. "Haven't lost everything. They'll get the relays open soon."

"Yeah," she says, and elbows him in the ribs. "Go for your run."

"Ow. Yes ma'am."

She stands at the front door and waves them off, Cortez in uniform, climbing into his beloved shuttle to head south for another scavenger run, Vega in his favourite grey t-shirt, jogging down the deserted road. The dark outline of a dead Reaper stood high above the rubble. Shepard glares at it and goes back inside to start her exercises.

Fucking Reapers.


	5. Chapter 5

For once, Shepard isn't woken by nightmares or the sickening sense that she _can't breathe can't breathe feeling the little poisonous movement of air being sucked out the punctures in her suit_. She wakes slowly, drawn out of a heavy sleep by the faint sounds of someone moving around in the house. It's nearing the end of spring now – or what should have been spring, if the Reapers hadn't so effectively screwed up the planet's natural weather patterns. The air is relatively warm, circling around her mattress and shivering down the hallway. Shepard sits up, tugs her threadbare jumper over her head, and pads to the kitchen. She pushes the door open carefully – it creaks if opened too quickly.

Cortez is sitting at the table, bright blue eyes gleaming against the sunset-orange of his omnitool. The battered old table is covered in electrical parts and wires. The weak old kitchen light flickers behind him. In the half-light, Shepard blinks, yawns, and takes a seat opposite. He looks up and smiles, and she's reminded of the many conversations they had, he working on the shuttle, she leaning against it.

"Can't sleep?" she asks.

Cortez shakes his head. "Not really. Still work to do."

Shepard takes a seat opposite him, pulling her hands into her sleeves. She leans closer, peering at the wires and boards he's working on. "What is that?"

"The shuttle's mobile comm unit. It was a bit scratchy today, wanted to patch it up. Should be in working order soon."

She nods, and leans back in her chair, lifting her cold bare feet to rest them on the seat opposite. The silence is comfortable: Cortez is absorbed in his work, deft fingers realigning wires that Shepard, impatient around anything electrical that doesn't work on the first attempt, would have said were long past saving. She watches him, quietly, and feels a rush of affection for his loyalty, his steadiness. He has never asked anything of her – apart from an invitation for drinks at Purgatory – and that, Shepard realises, makes him one of a very few whose friendship came unconditionally.

Kaidan, she thinks, never asked anything of her either. Not even to leave Cerberus. She shies away from the thought, and remembers instead the long, much-needed conversation they had after he rejoined the Normandy, sitting in the starboard lounge long after most of the crew had retreated to their racks. Words, words, words. So much talking.

"You alright, Commander?"

Cortez clips two boards together, still working.

Shepard thinks about the question, considering it as she considered the implications of a krogan-turian alliance. "No," she says at last. Seems words come easier at night, when the light is so weak she can't see her own hands, or the arrogant outline of the dead Reaper three blocks away. "Not really."

Cortez breathes out, a long, slow exhalation. "Can I help?"

Probably not, Shepard thinks. But then she stops, and thinks deeper: is she still avoiding everything, everyone? She lost her life once. Having it back has been both a gift and a curse. She can feel the cybernetics pulsing just beneath her skin, a fine network of synthetic power holding her together, forcing her heart to beat. Kaidan lost her once. Was this what he went through, this echo running through her head where once there'd been solid life?

"I don't know how I'm going to get out of this, Steve," she says. Her voice is hoarse from sleep and pain. Some nights she can't sleep for the deep twisted pain running down her spine, through her mangled ribs, her shoulder.

Cortez just waits.

"I just don't know," she adds, and scrubs one sleeve over her face. "Part of me wants to be out there again, helping Hackett, rebuilding the relays ..."

"But?" Cortez picks up a pair of pliers and twists two more wires together.

"I don't know how to build."

"You built peace between krogan, turian, quarian, geth, asari, humans. You built an alliance between species we never thought would speak to each other."

"All but killing myself and my crew in the process."

"You also rebuilt your crew. You helped me move on from Robert, for one."

Shepard falls silent. Cortez abandons the communicator, leaning back into his chair. His omnitool flickers off, leaving his face in shadow. She can just see the shape of his eyes, the line of his jaw accentuated by the kitchen light behind him.

"Shepard, you gave everything you had to the Alliance. Everything. We all saw it. Everyone on the Normandy was there for one purpose: to help you stop the Reapers. We knew the score." He pauses, and his voice drops lower. "I saw what you were thinking, before we hit Cerberus. I've been there myself. I know you didn't expect to come out of this war alive."

"I didn't _want_ to," Shepard says roughly. "I have done ... so many terrible things, Steve. Too many. I couldn't see how to live with everything after this war. I was stupid. I let Kaidan back in, and I should've kept him at arm's length, for his sake. I shouldn't have let myself – feel that much."

The silence is filled with tiny night-sounds: Vega snoring in the next room; tiny cracks and ripples as the house's concrete walls cool down after the hot day; the creak of Steve's chair as he shifts one shoulder against the old timber back; the steady drip of the cold tap in the bathroom that no one can fix; Shepard's finger scraping against her thumbnail.

Finally, Steve says, "Feeling is what saved you from turning into a Reaper." Shepard looks at him sharply; he continues, "You take feeling out of the equation and you turn into a monster. You feel everything you've done, Shepard. And that's ... good. As horrible and painful as it is. If you didn't, you'd be a Reaper."

Shepard lets the words settle into her mind, against the streaky red lines that wrap around Anderson with her bullet in his side, telling her _I'm proud of you_, against the desperation that finally broke Kaidan's control when he said goodbye. Those words still echo in her bones. "If I was a Reaper," she says, finally, "I wouldn't feel guilt at killing so many. I did my job. I did what I was there to do. I'm no better than a damn Reaper, even if I'm still human."

"Don't say that," Steve says, voice rising. He glances past Shepard to the hallway: Vega snores on. "It was too much for one person. I don't know how you held on so long, but you did – just long enough. You want to stay in this house and not speak to anyone for the rest of your life, Shepard, then you do that. But don't do it for the wrong reasons."

Shepard swallows, digging her fingers into her ribs. Somewhere there's pride left in her – somewhere, if she can only find it. Don't let the walls fall down. Don't let the walls fall down. "I miss him so much, Steve," she says at last. Her voice cracks. "I just found him again, and ... I miss them all. Tali, and Joker and – EDI."

Don't let the walls fall down. She closes her eyes, runs back to her silence, pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth, breathing through the choking mass in her throat. Perhaps it is a good thing Joker is gone, with the Normandy, because at least she doesn't have to look him in the eye and tell him she's killed one of the brightest things in his life. Perhaps they're all better off dead than surviving in this limping galaxy, patched together with medigel and the shattered remains of the mass relays. She will never tell them what happened on the Citadel.

Steve's chair scrapes back: a second later, his arms are around her, and she clenches her teeth against the words. Too many words.

"It's alright," Steve says, voice humming against her shoulder. "You'll get through it, Shepard. You haven't lost us all."

She thinks of Robert's picture on the memorial wall: lost, burnt up in the Citadel's explosion, surely. _Got to let go._ "I'm sorry," she says, then clamps her teeth down again. Don't let the damned walls down. She probably walked right past Robert's melted remains on the Collector base.

"You have to stop blaming yourself, Shepard."

She shakes her head, chin against Steve's collarbone.

"Yes, you do. The Reapers tried to destroy us, and they failed. It's not your fault they arrived, it's not your fault the galaxy wouldn't listen to you, and it's not your fault the Normandy is gone."

She always thought Steve was a perceptive man: now she wishes he wasn't. She takes a deep breath and thinks that perhaps the war was worth it, if humanity still has friends like him. The choking mass in her throat eases, a little.

Steve pulls back, hands on her shoulders. "You start believing that you're at fault for everything, and the Reapers may as well have indoctrinated you."

Shepard swallows, and repeats Vega's favourite phrase. "Fucking Reapers."

Steve grins, and nods. "Fucking Reapers." He stands, and says, in a totally different tone, "Want something to drink?"

"Yeah," Shepard says. She takes a few moments to rediscover the best breathing pattern, while Steve gets two chipped mugs out of the cupboard and puts the kettle on. Turning her chair so she can sit sideways at the table, she watches her shuttle pilot move around the kitchen. The final battle presses close behind her eyes, but she ignores it, this time.

She waits until Steve is sitting at the table again, two cups of tea between them, then says, "Would you tell me about Robert?"

Steve smiles, and does.


	6. Chapter 6

Four months into her self-imposed exile, Shepard returns from her evening run – some part of her hates this determined return to normality, the entire damn planet's need for routine and typical behaviour when all the galaxy is still shuddering with the war's shockwaves – and finds a turian waiting for her on the doorstep. She doesn't recognise him, white tattoos streaking down his face, bright green eyes fixed on her. He carries a long, narrow package in one hand.

The first turian she's seen since she limped past Garrus' bloodied body, the blazing white stream of light all she could see. She swallows.

"Commander Shepard." The turian's voice is deep, respectful. "Captain Tarkin." He gives her a crisp salute. His armour is pockmarked, dented here and there, but clean and polished.

Shepard salutes him, because that's what you do with turians, and stands waiting. The turian steps forward. "Commander, Primarch Victus apologises that he is not able to present this to you personally. I'm sure you understand ... work on the mass relays is a priority for all ... non-humans."

She nods, impatient, fighting to maintain a blank face in his presence. She watched his fellow turians be blown out of the sky by Reapers, like little pieces of paper on the autumn winds.

"The Primarch has entrusted this to me. My sincere apologies for not bringing this to you sooner: we couldn't find you at first and then we weren't ... certain of protocol. Admiral Hackett gave me your location. I can assure you the information won't go further than myself and the Primarch." He shifts, mandibles flaring with uncertainty, and then holds out the package. Shepard takes it. "We recovered it after the final battle. The Primarch felt it necessary for you to have it. Good day, Commander."

Tarkin salutes again, and skirts around Shepard to the road. She watches him go, much as she would watch an indoctrinated rachni. He pauses as the road, turns back. "And, Commander? Thank you. For all that you did."

He leaves. Shepard stands on the doorstep, fingers wrapped around the cloth package. She stares blankly at the closed, battered door. Not this again.

The roof is, surprisingly, quite stable. Not much of a view, just yawning houses, broken skyscrapers and the occasional plume of smoke still burning. The hulking outline of the dead Reaper a few blocks away still lies silent and cold. Shepard sits on the lichen and dust-covered tiles, her feet drawn up in front of her. On the flat sky-light beside her is a bottle of beer, swiped from their limited store of 'luxury' items. She takes a long drink, and notices two figures walking down the road, shadows lengthened by the evening sun behind her shoulders. Steve and James, coming home from work. They've both been working more often, recently, leaving Shepard alone for hours at a time now she can vocally assure them that she wants them to go, and she doesn't need two damned nurses hovering over her all the time worrying if she sneezes. Vega needs the activity, anyway. He needs to be doing _something_, even if it's not N7 training. They're all scarred, mentally and physically.

Shepard watches them from her vantage point, moving along the pockmarked road, side by side. James looks tired, she thinks, but satisfied. His hands are greasy, the dust of demolished buildings on his shoulders and speckling his hair. Looks like he's figured out how to build things after all. Steve is his usual immaculate self – how he always manages to look like he just got dressed for an award ceremony, she doesn't know. She wonders where the shuttle is, then remembers that Steve mentioned something about leaving it at the Alliance base close by overnight, now that security is becoming an issue again; end of the world, and they still have vandals. She looks away from the two, her brothers. The Reaper mocks her with its silent presence.

"Fuck you," she mutters.

Her fingers move in familiar motions. She loads the heavy black and silver sniper rifle with a fresh heatsink, runs her fingers over the name etched into the barrel. _Vakarian._

Shepard drops her head to the scope, closes one eye, aims, breathes gently, pulls. _Crack._ Five months since she held a working gun. It both disturbs and reassures her, how familiar it is. Her body absorbs the recoil easily. The bullet bounces off the Reaper's skin, a fly buzzing around a gigantic dead elephant. She'll keep buzzing until the dead thing leaves.

"I'm Commander Shepard," she mutters, "And this is my favourite Reaper on Earth."

She straightens, flips the sizzling heatsink out and sets a fresh one in its place. From the corner of her eye she watches Steve and James stop in their tracks: they can see her, sitting for all the world to see on the roof of their house, a bottle of beer in one hand, her best friend's sniper rifle in the other. She raises the bottle to them: James waves, and even from this distance she can practically see the tension leave their bodies at the simple gesture. "No worries, boys," she says, quietly, "I've not snapped yet."

She puts the beer down, and aims again. Behind her, the sun slides closer to the horizon, soaking the oily clouds in yellow-gold light. _Crack._ The Reaper's skin sparks. With one eye closed she can almost see it shiver. If she closes the other eye, she can see the tendrils of insidious black smoke sliding toward her. She opens both eyes and shakes herself, an involuntary shudder of skin and bones, like Kasumi throwing off her tactical cloak.

Vega and Cortez reach the front door and disappear inside with one last look to make sure she's alright. For a moment she feels irritated, angry at the need for their concern, for the constant watch she's sure Hackett has placed on this house. If she looks through the scope of Garrus' battered sniper rifle she knows she could find the three vantage points the guards have been using, but she doesn't. This isn't about herself any more. This is about Vakarian.

In her flash of anger she unleashes three more heatsinks into the Reaper's untouched skin, and thinks that this is what Garrus was talking about when he all but ordered her to stand aside while she desperately trusted that he wouldn't put a bullet straight through her skull and into Sidonis' forehead. Of course he didn't. Of course she hadn't been worried that he might. She trusted him. But now she knows what he felt: this burning, boiling fury that she can't shake, even after months of exhaustion and soul-deep blankness and the simple, bald fact that the Reapers are dead.

"No Shepard without Vakarian," she mutters, kicking the spent heatsinks so they rattle and roll down the roof to land in the rusted gutters below her. No Shepard without Alenko. No Shepard without Moreau. No Shepard without T'soni. No Shepard without Zorrah. No Shepard without Normandy. No Shepard without Shepard.

She finishes off the beer, the sniper rifle resting across her lap. Behind her the sun has disappeared, leaving the dull clouds to wrap the battered, scarred old Earth in damp, silent fingers. She thinks again of Steve, standing at the Memorial Wall telling himself to let go. It's been four months: she can't let go. For the first time since the Citadel she allows herself to look into the future, and knows that she won't ever be able to let go. Not if she doesn't _know._

Shepard stands on the roof, heedless of the ever-present dizziness deep in her ears, and lets the truth she's been fighting rise. Her body has been broken over and over again, and it's not good enough. The Reapers have taken her home, her Normandy, her crew, her self. She won't let them take her pride. She'll be damned before these fatuous dead machines will lord it over her grief. Hackett made a promise. Maybe she's being stupid, a cracked woman clinging to a false, persistent hope because reason – reality – is too hard to deal with, but if she is, she's earned it. Having a turian for a friend has taught her one thing: don't give up even when the entire galaxy thinks you're insane.

_The Collectors killed you once and all it did was piss you off._

Shepard lifts her face to the chilly breeze and thinks that this time, she will not lose anyone else.

"I'll see you at the bar in a few years, Vakarian," she says, lifting the rifle in her right hand. "Until then, I'm borrowing this."

She climbs down from the roof, and notices as she walks around to the front door that there are lights on in the mostly-intact house two doors down. The city is being reawoken. Neighbours; two people walking down the street, coming towards her. Shepard grimaces, and ducks inside before anyone spots her.

She finds James and Steve in the kitchen, Steve actually sitting still for once while Vega organises dinner. Shepard takes a seat and puts Garrus' rifle on the table. Steve eyes it, his bright blue eyes watchful. Shepard runs a finger over the worn trigger, and says, "James, could you clean this up for me?"

James looks over his shoulder, and recognises the rifle immediately. "Sure, Lola. You planning on shooting anything other than dead Reapers with it?"

"No," Shepard says, "but you never know."

The pause lengthens.

"I got a message today," Steve says, locking his hands behind his head. "From Liara."

Shepard looks up, her heart lurching. _Please say the mass relays are working._ But she knows they won't be: Steve would have told her the instant he heard.

Steve continues, absently watching Vega move around the kitchen as he talks. "She's having some problems on Mars. Not enough Prothean experts left to translate the texts properly, and apparently some of the aliens are getting impatient. A few quarians have just announced they're leaving with FTL-capable ships. Some krogans have joined them."

"Wrex won't be happy about that," Shepard says, surprised.

"Apparently he shot a couple in the legs. The others got away."

She snorts, despite herself. "Sounds like Wrex." But she's not paying attention to the conversation now: she's thinking, turning the thought over and over. Not enough Prothean experts. Not enough. She remembers Liara's surprise that Shepard understood the data on Eden Prime, that she could unlock Javik's stasis chamber without months or years of patient asari matriarchs decoding the untranslatable data.

Hackett needs Shepard out parading in front of cameras, taking flowers from little girls, giving rousing speeches, being photographed making symbolic gestures of rebuilding – lifting conveniently-sized rocks, or talking to little knots of humans, or shaking hands with asari commandos – oh, she knows everything Hackett wants her to do, and she hates it all. She doesn't blame him. Hackett is a soldier, just as she is, only he can't escape the responsibility of managing an entire planet without a functioning government, because he's an Admiral and he wasn't trapped on the Citadel making a choice that she still can't even begin to process. If she had the brainpower to spare, she would sympathise with him. Now, the Butcher of Torfan just doesn't care. Her entire being is consumed with the question her military training, her very self-identity, has been fighting to ignore for the past four months. It's not working.

She has to know, one way or the other. _Is the Normandy still in one piece_?

Even in her own head she can't allow herself to hope _is Kaidan still alive_?

She won't even dare think _can I get him back?_

It's a selfish line of thought, and she should be above selfishness. She should be eager to help work on the Mars archives because it will help the galaxy; because it will rebuild the mass relays that will free the Alliance from its forced bonds of friendship and post-trauma. She should be eager to find her entire crew, but if her heart runs from the thought of Kaidan dead on some empty, silent world, her guilt outright flees from seeing Joker face to face.

Strange, that she endures such crippling guilt over EDI's death and only a deep sadness over the geth's fate. The geth chose their path, and she managed to unite them with the quarians for a time, if only a short time. Surely a few months of unity is better than three hundred years of war. Perhaps the damned kid on the Citadel was right, and she'd just postponed the inevitable.

Shepard blinks, pulled out of her own mind by Steve's hand covering hers. She looks up, drawn back into the draughty little kitchen by the realisation that her fingers are obsessively picking at her own skin, tugging and tearing at her wrists repeatedly.

"Sorry," she says, forcing her hands to sit still.

In recent weeks she's developed another habit, reaching out to touch Steve and James whenever they're nearby. A quick pat on the arm to thank James for cooking breakfast; resting her hand on Steve's shoulder when he's seated at the table and she's watching him work; putting her feet on Vega's knees when the three of them are playing cards late into the night, betting household chores and long-gone artefacts ("I see your Rings of Alune and raise you one Prothean Data Drive").

Shepard was never a tactile person, never one to touch or hug or hold, always faintly embarrassed by Kelly's need to hug everyone when they came back from a particularly rough mission. If she needed support, she searched for it in words, or a look, but not touch. Now she needs it, needs to touch them to reassure herself fifty times a day that they are still alive, still breathing, still with her. One of the first signs that she'd begun to see Kaidan as more than just a reliable second-in-command was when she'd caught herself watching his hands work on the console outside her quarters, wanting him to run his hands over her skin. A long time ago.

Steve takes his hand away and she counts the scars on the backs of her wrists. She's infinitely grateful for Steve and James' understanding. They've been through the same as she, up to a point, and she's noticed that Vega looks often to Steve for guidance when Shepard mentioned the Normandy or disappears into her own thoughts, but Steve looks to Vega for humour and encouragement. The family dynamics are off-balance, but they work. Shepard thinks suddenly of Liara and Wrex sitting side by side in the communications room on the old Normandy, Garrus and Ashley beside them, and she smiles. She's never really known a typical family.

"What're you thinking about, Lola?" Vega takes a seat next to her, three plates of protein mash in front of them. The supplies are getting thinner. The sooner the mass relays are operational, the better. Humanity's numbers may have been halved, but that's still several billion people needing to eat every day.

"Thinking of contacting Liara. Seeing if she needs a hand."

"You mean, with the Prothean translation? You still got that freaky history-thing in your head?"

"The Conduit? Yes." She shovels a mouthful of bland protein in, and swallows. Vega watches her eat like a hawk. Some days he still refuses to eat until she's cleaned her plate.

"I can contact Liara for you," Steve says, fork hovering over his plate.

"That would be great."

"You sure you're ready for this, Lola? It's ... I mean, we've been pretty cut off here. Hackett has just announced they're reopening districts. We're in one of them."

"I saw. Some people have moved in down the road."

Vega swallows a gigantic mouthful, plate cleared already, and says, "Rebuilding seems to be picking up speed."

"Well, we've got a bigger workforce now seventy percent are out of the hospitals," Steve says. "More people just want to get back to whatever life they can find."

There's a short pause while Vega scrapes his plate clean and Shepard chews, swallows, loads her fork again.

"Still doesn't feel right," Vega says at last. "Like ... this isn't Earth. Not the Earth I knew."

"The Earth we knew is long gone."

"But – all of it? We're still human, right? So where's our identity gone?"

"With the Reapers' indoctrination," Shepard says, quietly. "Galaxy-wide post-traumatic shock."

"Could take us years to even start thinking as humans again," Steve agrees. "Like waking up after a coma."

Shepard picks up her plate and tips the remainder of her protein onto Vega's empty plate. He starts to protest, but she points her fork at him, narrowing her eyes. "Eat, Lieutenant. You're twice my weight and I'm just sitting around here all day."

"Chakwas said you're still underweight –"

"Chakwas isn't my mother, and neither are you. Eat."

Vega laughs, a deep rumble that fills the kitchen and chases out the dark conversation. "Yes ma'am."

Steve stands, smoothing down his uniform. "I'll send a message to Liara now, if you're certain, Commander?"

She doesn't need to think any more. Five months of recovery has told her everything she needs to know. Shepard is not one to sit still. "I am." She pauses, then adds, "I'm not sure what you two want to do – I mean – you've been waiting here and ..." Speaking is still too difficult.

Vega comes to her rescue. "Commander, we're going where you go."

Again and again their loyalty surprises her. She has learnt not to take anything for granted – not even breathing – but she still must ask. "Are you absolutely certain? James, you should be off in N7 training. And Steve, you're far too good a pilot to be wasted flying a shuttle back and forth."

Steve takes the plates to the sink and says, over his shoulder, "At the risk of sounding arrogant, I agree. I've been thinking about it. They need more air support on Mars. Hackett put out the call a few days ago for more trainee fighter pilots. We lost nearly all the fleet in the final battle. I can be more use on Mars teaching new pilots than shifting rubble and refugees from zone to zone down here. And Mr Vega here has something to tell you."

James curses in Spanish, embarrassment clear on his face. Shepard raises her eyebrows.

"It's nothing," he says, flicking one hand in a dismissive gesture. "I got a message this morning. Apparently I've been promoted to N7 status, thanks to following you into nests of banshees every five minutes."

Shepard smiles, as full of pride as if he were her kid being awarded first prize in the school fair. "Following me around didn't do anything. You earned it, James, absolutely. Congratulations."

"Ah, don't make me blush. I'm going for a run." James stands and heads for the door, face still bright red. Shepard reaches out and touches his forearm as he goes past: he catches her hand and squeezes it briefly before letting go and disappearing outside.

Steve laughs, and disappears to his room to send messages. Shepard yawns. In this half-time between injury and full recovery she still gets tired in sudden bursts, needing to sleep before the thick, self-destructive thoughts creep back into her worn out mind. She breathes deeply, picks up Garrus' sniper rifle, and meanders down the hall to her room.

It's strange, but she will miss this little house. The prospect of leaving has heightened her senses. The cracked old walls that smell of musty damp and fresh plaster, the dust rising from the carpet, the blurred-glass window. It is not home, but it is a place she can breathe in. For now. She places the rifle on the floor beside her mattress, and promises herself that she will find a proper case for it one day soon.

Shepard curls herself onto the mattress, and closes her eyes. She drifts, away from the curling black smoke and the Illusive Man's persistent ideas, further into what she used to think was happiness. If she strips away the cold, and the dank corners of the room; strips away Steve's humming that floats through the paper-thin walls, and replaces it with the deep thrum of the Normandy's engines, she can almost feel Kaidan breathing steadily beside her, sense him shifting in his sleep.

She tucks her knees onto her chest, drifts, and sleeps.


	7. Chapter 7

Shepard is glad there are no mirrors in their little house. Her uniform hangs off her, belt two holes tighter than usual. She's not sure how she managed to lose more weight, considering the five kilos she shed in the last few months of constant running, shooting, debating, cajoling and stressing before the final assault on Earth. When Kaidan wasn't helping her with data and reports and bludgeoning the galaxy into a makeshift Alliance, he was following her around with a plate and a cup of coffee. If he did finally convince her to sit down for five minutes she inevitably ended up falling asleep on his shoulder, the food and coffee going cold.

All gone now. James doesn't have Kaidan's powers of persuasion when it comes to making her eat.

She ties her hair up in her familiar bun, straightens the collar, and waits. James is doing a final sweep of the house, removing all familiar signs of their occupation. They're leaving the cutlery and basic supplies; apparently there's already a family waiting to move in. Five more houses have been reconnected to the water mains in the past few days. Shepard traces a deep gouge along the edge of the kitchen table with one finger and practices breathing.

Vega appears, weighed down by two footlockers, his beloved shotgun balanced on top. He pauses in the doorway and raises his eyebrows. "Ready?"

Shepard swallows, and nods. "As I'll ever be." She picks up the bag she was given at the hospital and Garrus' sniper rifle, now in a fresh case. She runs her palm over the house's walls in a final thanks for the haven it has provided, and follows Vega outside. The shuttle is waiting, Cortez fussing over some faulty light and eyeing the time balefully.

It's been a week since she contacted Liara. Hackett had to authorise the transfer, but she knows he would have agreed to any request she made, anything to get her back into the public domain somehow. A Commander Shepard assisting the mass relay reconstruction teams with Prothean translations is far more useful than a Commander Shepard hiding in a house with two of her old crew standing guard against any nosy reporter, lost souls or Conrad Verners.

The arrogant outline of the dead Reaper lowers over the houses, sneering at the defiant city's efforts to rebuild. Further down the road, two salarians in uniform are helping a human technician reconnect wires. Any day now, there will be street lights and electricity through this area. London refused to go down without a fight, and now, Shepard is relieved to see, that refusal has not cost them everything.

"Hey, Lola. You going to stand around all day?"

"Shut up, Vega," she replies automatically, and throws her bag at him. He catches it, a grin on his scarred face. As the shuttle door slides shut, Shepard looks back at the battered little house that has been her place to hide for the past five or so months, and knows that she will not return to Earth. She does not say goodbye.

Cortez and Vega are in a good mood, and won't let her brood. They have to make a short stop at the central spaceport, a few miles south, to collect supplies for Mars. Vega tells a myriad of awful of jokes, Cortez ruining them with well-placed comments. Shepard closes her eyes and lets their voices fill her mind. It's hard not to feel ... hopeful, now that she is doing something. If she had the energy she would probably regret running to ground for these past few months, feel ashamed at hiding. She tucks those sour thoughts behind her pride and just listens to the hum of the shuttle, Vega's voice, Cortez' laugh.

"So what do you call a batarian with a concussion?"

"I don't know, James, maybe 'a concussed batarian'?"

Vega rolls his eyes. "You have no heart, Cortez. Every joke. Every single joke."

"Maybe if they weren't so bad I'd let you tell them properly, Mr Vega."

"Hey, that one's a classic!"

"Uh huh. You made it up."

"Well, yeah, but it has potential to become a classic. If you'd let it."

The banter is so similar to the scores of shuttle rides they took in the fight against the Reapers, Shepard almost expects to be wearing armour, to have Kaidan or Liara or Garrus or Tali sitting beside her adding their own 'how many humans does it take to change a geth's flashlight' jokes to the mix. She hates her own damned nostalgia. Reducing the War to 'remember whens' is an insult to everything she fought for, but the gigantic hole that the Normandy has left unbalances every thought she has.

And that's why she's doing this, isn't it? She told Hackett she was done, but she wasn't. She is still Commander Shepard, and she will be Commander Shepard until she dies. The persona she took on is so firmly embedded in every cell of her body, she could manage to take it off for a while but it's regrowing, creeping back over her in remorseless steps.

The now-familiar anger, the outrage at being denied her own choice to die on the Citadel, _one selfish act in the entire damned war_, rises up to choke out the hope James and Steve have been so carefully cultivating. Breathing becomes hard, she loses the rhythm, has to remind herself again and again – breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Let the pain run through you; fighting it makes it worse. She finds she misses Miranda's pragmatism.

She is absorbed in that one thought, breathe, breathe, breathe, that she doesn't notice the shuttle has landed until the door opens. They've arrived at the spaceport.

"Won't be long," Steve says, jumping down from the Kodiak. "Just got to find Emerson and he'll bring the supplies in."

Shepard stands and stretches, her gaze drawn to the activity outside. Even with the mass relays down, it seems plenty of people still want to travel. Or perhaps, she thinks, they have nowhere else to go. The London spaceport somehow escaped most major structural damage: it still has a roof, and that's something. There are makeshift beds and blanket walls, footlockers and boxes, numbered tags sectioning out the great space before her into refugee camps. And there are people everywhere.

Faced with so many – humans mostly, but turians and asari between them, even krogan and salarian huddled into their own individual groups – the sensations of noise and activity rise up, roaring around Shepard like the blare of the Reaper's indoctrination howl. She stands framed by the shuttle's open door, staring out at the unshakeable proof that she did it: she saved them, she protected them from destruction and took down the Reapers.

_I'm proud of you, child._

Children: children everywhere. A baby screaming in a corner, its anxious mother being assisted by, of all people, an asari commando. Three or four small human children, girls and a boy, run around with makeshift toys, banging into people, tripping over footlockers and ropes. Turians stride around: they and the krogan are the only two species still wearing armour. The occasional flash of blue tattoos makes Shepard's heart shiver in her chest. She sits down abruptly, and tears at the skin around her fingernails.

Vega leaves the co-pilot seat and shuffles through the cramped doorway toward her.

"You alright?"

She nods blindly, then remembers that she is supposed to use words. "People," she manages.

Vega sits down opposite her and rests his elbows on his knees, looking out into the mass of life. "Yeah," he says. "I forgot you've not been here at all since ... I mean, Steve and I are here most days, rebuilding. I should – will you be OK if I go and say goodbye to some _amigos_? I should let them know I'm heading to Mars."

_No,_ she thinks, but nods anyway. Vega is not her parent. "Of course. I'm fine."

Vega looks at her, then chuckles. "Nice try, Lola." He leans back against the wall and kicks his feet out, crossing his ankles. "I can send them a message."

She remembers more words. "James. Go and say goodbye to your friends. I am fine."

He wants to, she can tell. "Go," she adds, injecting more of her Commander Shepard tone into her voice.

"Alright, alright. I'll just be over there. You want the door shut?"

"No, leave it open."

She watches him leave, heading straight toward a group of krogan who are taking a long time to shift several heavy-looking crates from one side of the main floor to the other. Cortez is nowhere to be seen.

Too many people. Not enough people. Not nearly enough. Was this all she was prepared to die for? She looks around, resisting the urge to count, and catches the eye of a young blonde woman, staring at her from across the deck. Shepard's heart drops. She leans back immediately, sucks in air and lets it out. Too late.

The blonde woman appears at the shuttle door, tentatively peering inside. She wrings her hands, and Shepard notices the familiar callouses of a soldier, the tan-line at her neck, an ugly, new scar searing its way down the woman's forearm.

"Are you – are you Commander Shepard?"

Shepard considers her possible answers: yes, no, who? She can't lie. She nods, once.

The woman bursts into tears. She reaches for Shepard, her hands gripping Shepard's own with a fierce hold. "Thank you. Thank you so much. You saved us – thank you."

More people have noticed: more people are coming across to the shuttle, previously dull eyes afire. The whisper flies across the port, more insidious than the Reaper's indoctrination. _Shepard. Shepard. Shepard._ The blonde woman won't let go: Shepard swallows down rising panic. Don't let the walls fall down. She will not look for Steve or James. She is Commander Shepard. She does not owe them anything, but she must give them more.

Always, there is more. She must give more. And don't let the walls fall down.

But what does she say, to this pressing, hungry crowd? Humans and aliens crowd around the shuttle, hands reaching in to touch Shepard, to beg, to praise, to thank. Eyes on her, voices raised in adulation and fear and distress. It's been five months and no word of their saviour – but she didn't save them, she thinks, she damned them to hunger and fear and, for many, exile on this unfamiliar world that they volunteered to save.

She is Commander Shepard, and if nothing else, she owes Anderson her life – more than once.

So she will continue to be Commander Shepard, even when every thrice-broken bone in her body is screaming with the effort of just holding herself together. As long as they want her.

Shepard gently disentangles her hands from the blonde woman's, stands, and smiles out at the crowd. They want all of her, every atom and microbe, every Prothean relic trapped inside her mind, every story and word she can offer. She gives them all she can, forcing words of comfort and thanks, apology and welcome; hugs a crying child; shakes hands with a turian who she apparently saved from certain death in the final battle; exchanges nods with two clan Urdnot; gives and gives and gives.

Their words roll over her, on and on.

"Commander Shepard, Commander – you saved us."

"Thank you, Commander."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you ..."

Beneath the exterior of Commander Shepard, this woman she used to be but can barely recognise now, she prepares herself for the tide to turn. She's seen this before. She knows what is coming. They need it.

"This is my son, Daniel – he was on the Citadel, when the Reapers moved it – did you see him? Did you see any sign –"

"Commander, what happened on the Citadel? What happened?"

"You lost Thessia, Shepard, you sacrificed us—"

"—I was on Horizon when—"

"—please just tell me, did you see him die?—"

"—will never get back to Illium, what am I supposed to do here, Shepard? You saved us, for what?—"

"—the Reapers truly dead? Are they?"

"What if they come back?"

"—why weren't you here? We needed you, Shepard, we need you now—"

The hands that reach for her grow harsher, fingers clawing at her skin as if they hope to find the truth of what happened beneath her muscles. Shepard retreats, step by step back toward the shuttle – how did she wind up so far away, what happened? They are turning, turning on her with the desperate hunger of fear and loneliness and the aftershocks of loss. She should have seen this coming. She can't breathe.

Her biotics flicker: the pressing crowd halts, just for a second, and she forces down the dizziness, but she can't stop the blue energy from sputtering to life over her skin. The crowd's hysteria rises, rises—

Then there's a uniform in front of her, and for a moment she thinks she's hit someone with her biotics until she realises no, it's Cortez' blue eyes right in front of her, and he's got his arms out to protect her from the pressing people. He's shouting, ordering people to step back, calm down. A moment later Vega is behind her, hands on her shoulders, his sheer bulk pushing people away. The two Urdnot krogans are beside him, weaponless but no one argues with a krogan. Don't let the walls fall down. Shepard lets the four of them move her to the shuttle, concentrating on stopping her uncertain biotics from unleashing hell on the entire refugee population in the port. Just breathe and count. Control. Control control control.

Vega bundles her into the shuttle and stands at the open door, silent in the face of the crowd. His glare and muscles holding even the boldest back. The two krogan begin to push the crowd away as Cortez ducks into the cockpit and starts the shuttle. Shepard, still locked inside her Commander mask, falls back onto the seat and swallows down the rising bile. She saved them all. No comfort there.

The shuttle kicks into life: the crowd steps back, guards threading through them, shouting orders to calm down, to return to their allocated sleeping quarters. So many eyes, still watching Shepard as the shuttle lifts off.

The door slides shut, and Vega takes a deep breath, turns and stares at Shepard. He checks her over for injury, heedless of the erratic biotic power still crackling and hissing over her, and she's surprised at the level of fear in his eyes.

"You alright? Did they get you?"

She shakes her head, and closes her eyes, waiting for the adrenaline to subside. A knot is forming at the base of her skull, a deep drifting pain. Maybe it will go further up into her head. Maybe it will run down and join the steady ache in her ribs and lungs. Doesn't matter. She focuses on it, remembers the deep lines drawn on Kaidan's face as he came out of the medical bay, pale and dark-eyed after another migraine.

"You were supposed to stay with her, James!"

"I know – she told me to go and I wanted to tell Wrex –"

Cortez is uncompromising. "You were supposed to stay with her. We agreed you would stay with her."

Vega's voice is full of anger, but not at Cortez. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Shepard. I fucked up."

"It's not your fault," Shepard says, counting the seconds until her biotics finally die down, energy leeching from her like the blood she lost lying on the destroyed Citadel waiting for her death.

"It is," Vega snaps. "I should've seen it coming. You've been gone for five months, rumours were that you were actually dead and the brass were covering it up. It's taken us months to convince the press to just leave you alone. Of course they'd go loco when they saw you. I shouldn't have left you."

"We shouldn't have stopped at all," Cortez says.

"It doesn't matter," Shepard says, more strongly. She opens her eyes, and fixes Vega with a long, steady look. He blames himself and he's too angry to see clearly. "They were going to turn on me sooner or later. I just delayed it by disappearing."

The two men are quiet for a moment, then Cortez says, "What do you mean?"

It's not hard to maintain the clipped, distant tone she's used on so many dignitaries, so many tough calls, on Ashley, telling her there would be no rescue.

"I don't know what Hackett's put out as the official story, but enough people know we were launching a final assault, and I got through to the Citadel." It feels like a betrayal of herself; how easily the words come, how she's fallen back into Commander Shepard, even when she swore five months ago that she was done, never going back. "Humanity needs to know everything, it's one of our driving forces. They're angry at me for not telling them what happened ... on the Citadel." Her voice drops, falling into the harsh, deeper tones she used on every single mission, voice carrying across cryo explosions and husk shrieks, banshee wails and Reaper howls. "I'm all that's left of their fear and hatred toward the Reapers. I wiped out three hundred thousand batarians. I destroyed one of humanity's only voices in the wilderness outside Citadel Space, madman or no. I united the geth and quarians, then killed them all. I united the galaxy and destroyed our apocalypse. And then I had the audacity to disappear. Of course they were going to turn on me. It was just a matter of time. Heros are just villains under another name."

The silence in the shuttle wraps around her bones, and she counts the rivets along the Kodiak's walls. She waits for Vega or Cortez to protest, to say that she is a hero or that she's wrong, she is not a monster. But they are silent. She can just see Cortez' shoulder and arm from where she sits. Vega is staring at her, hands locked together. His expression is completely blank.

Shepard is about to close her eyes, the residual adrenaline still burning through her lungs, when Vega says, "You can't do that, Lola."

"Do what?"

"Take on the entire blame for the war."

She smiles, gently. "I can."

Vega shakes his head, frustrated. "It's going to kill you." He stands and ducks into the cockpit, sits down in the co-pilot seat. Cortez reaches out and rests his hand for a moment on Vega's shoulder. Shepard closes her eyes and begins rebuilding her walls.

Mars is going to be hell.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Thanks so much to everyone for your wonderful comments and critique. This story has a definite end and we're well on the way, now. _

When the shuttle door opens, Shepard follows Vega out into the scarlet Mars Archives and laughs, abruptly, bitterly. There are no Cerberus here this time, and she has Steve beside her instead of Kaidan, and there no dead Alliance bodies scattered across the blood-red sand the Archives rest upon. But it's close enough: too close. Shepard flexes her fingers and, for the first time, misses the weight of her shotgun on her back, the build of armour covering her body. There are Alliance soldiers everywhere in the port, grim, thin, tired-eyed, flanked by krogan and turians in their beloved armour. No civilians here. Discipline. Discipline.

"Commander Shepard." The deep voice is familiar, for a moment, and Shepard turns to see Major Coates saluting her. Steve and James salute back, snapping to attention, but Coates pays them no attention. He finishes his salute and holds out his hand, missing two fingers. "Good to see you again, ma'am. I'm on your security detail while you're here."

Shepard shakes his hand but doesn't salute, ignoring protocol: she's a damn Spectre, she'll salute who she please. She's glad to see Coates, though, glad he survived. Her five-month policy of not asking questions is beginning to catch up with her. She realises now that she doesn't even know how many survived the final Hammer assault.

"Security detail?" she asks, clearing her throat against the dry scratchiness the arid Mars climate has already instigated.

"Admiral Hackett asked me to personally see to your safety. Lieutenant Vega will be continuing his unofficial work as your ... permanent bodyguard, but we'll have marines on your six around the clock." Coates gestures toward the facility entrance: they walk towards it, Cortez and Vega dropping back a few paces.

"Against what?"

Coates looks uncomfortable for a moment, his broad face twisted under a fresh scar running across his ear to the corner of his nose. "There's been some unrest in recent days. Mostly ... certain alien groups concerned that humanity isn't being entirely helpful with the relay research. And news of your arrival hasn't – has caused some difficulties."

Shepard is silent for a moment, waiting as Coates swipes his passkey and opens the door. She glances over her shoulder: Steve smiles at her, Vega's attention taken by a female officer walking past. Shepard raises an eyebrow at Steve and he grins wider, whacking Vega on the arm as the door opens.

Coates leads them through a familiar pathway, deeper into the Archives. There are eyes on her everywhere; but these are soldiers, her brethren, and she can take their stares. They need to see she's alive. She was more selfish than she realised, hiding away in her little foxhole, clinging to the remainder of her crew. Shepard pauses on a high walkway: right there is where Liara practically fell back into her life. There are no Cerberus here, not any more. She forces herself to keep walking, following Coates' broad shoulders to the tramway. Kaidan took down two Centurions with one biotic punch here ... she sent Vega back to the shuttle there ...

Enough living in the past. They're well into the Archives now, and are passing more busy turians, krogans, asari, quarians – even a few drell, Shepard notices, and wonders if she had thought to bring Thane here earlier, perhaps his lungs would have recovered some of their functionality. Enough living in the past. She shakes her head free of her own damn history and steps off the tramway, heads into the wide room where she and Liara once faced off against The Illusive Man.

This time the room is packed. Computer stations have been set up in every corner. Alliance soldiers are everywhere, flashes of dark blue uniforms through the tall turian faces, the broad humps of krogan, quarians throughout. Asari commandos and scientists alike are by far the most prevalent. In the centre of the room is a holographic model of the Sol relay. Red is the primary colour staining its shapes: blue here and there, but red right through it. It reminds Shepard unpleasantly of the Omega 4 Relay. Hell, it's been so long since she thought of the Collectors at all, her old nightmares and fears swallowed up by the total destruction of everything she held on to, the Reapers' grip on her sanity and self-worth.

The noise is subdued but constant, voices conversing, the familiar beep and chatter of computers at work: rough krogan accents arguing with the double-tones of turians. Shepard stops and stares. This is what she has done.

"_Dios_. This is amazing."

"Never thought I'd see all these races working together _after_ the war," Steve mutters.

Coates looks around. "They all want to get home. Still got a common purpose."

"Still united, huh." Vega's voice changes. "Hey, there's Liara."

Shepard finds her: the asari is standing right beside the mass relay holograph, two other asari and a human at her side. Liara moves with purpose, gestures full of command and determination. A turian approaches, holding a datapad. Shepard watches as Liara reads over the turian's work, shakes her head, points something out. The turian nods, takes the datapad back and retreats to his workstation.

"Looks to me like Liara is in charge here," Shepard says to Coates.

He's surprised. "You didn't know, ma'am? Dr T'Soni has been coordinating all the species to work together, keeping them in line, focusing the work to restart the relays. She's been a revelation. The krogans and turians would've torn each other apart without her."

Shepard pushes her hands into her uniform pockets and stands watching her friend.

"Admiral Hackett has turned over all control of the research to Dr. T'Soni. Says she's the best person for the job, and he's right. Excuse me, ma'am." Coates vanishes into the crowd.

Shepard nods absently and takes a step forward. As she does so, Liara turns, and sees her. Shepard smiles. Liara drops her datapad and pushes through the crowd, heedless of the scientists trying to get her attention. Shepard has just time enough to notice that Liara is thinner, deep lines on her familiar face, before the asari's arms are around Shepard and her face pressed into Shepard's shoulder.

"Oh, Shepard. Shepard. I'm so sorry. I couldn't leave, I couldn't come and see you, they needed me here and – and there was so much work – I had to find the mass relay – Shepard, I'm so sorry."

Shepard holds her friend and closes her eyes against the curious, fascinated stares of the scientists closest to her. "I'm so happy to see you, Liara," she whispers, and realises it's more true than she thought. She is happy. "Of course you were needed here."

Liara sniffs and pulls back, wiping her eyes. "I just ... Steve – Lieutenant Cortez kept me updated on your progress and I was so worried, but every time I thought I had a chance to get to Earth something happened – a breakthrough or a step back – and we're so close now."

Shepard nods, gesturing to the wide room. "Coates tells me you're in charge."

"Well, yes. Mostly because of my knowledge of Prothean technology, and having worked with you also helped. Many of these scientists worked on the Crucible. The technology isn't so different, but just more complex. It's translating the Prothean research on the relays that is delaying us." Liara's voice grows stronger, and Shepard sees something she does not like in the asari's face. The same driven focus that sent Liara off after a rogue Spectre without caring for the safety or lives of others. The same single-minded determination. "But with you here perhaps we can increase the translation speed – you have the Cipher, you can help me work on the translations with more accuracy and – I just wish Javik were here, and the others."

Liara pauses to catch her breath and Vega interrupts. "Hey, Blue, good to see you again."

Liara looks surprised momentarily, then smiles at the young man. "Lieutenant Vega, it's nice to see you too. Hello, Steve."

"Ma'am." Steve salutes, and Shepard raises her eyebrows. Steve saluting a non-Alliance member? Liara truly has risen in the Alliance estimation.

"So," Liara says, "We've just started work on a new section of the Archives, and it's the most promising. We believe the mass relays operate in tandem – that is, if one of them is disabled, then the relays it links to will also be disabled, and thus causing a chain reaction. Our working hypothesis is that if we can restart the Sol relay, the other relays will restart themselves automatically. It may even be that other people across the galaxy are also working on restarting their relays, so we could be unknowingly working in teams. I – I don't know if anyone survived on Thessia but the last intelligence I had said that our relay was intact, so even if Thessia's scientists are completely ... gone, perhaps the researchers on Illium have started work. If that's the case, we could be looking at restarting the relays any time, any day. But we can't confirm that theory until the quantum entanglement communications are back online. An Alliance team is working on that problem at the other end of the base. Hackett sends me regular updates and he believes they're also close to a breakthrough. We don't know what happened, what caused the original shut-down of all the technology but it seems to be in operational form, just ... not operational."

Shepard cuts into the flow of information, holding up one hand. "Liara, take a breath."

Liara looks down. "I'm sorry. I know this is a great deal of information for you to take in. But we need you to start work as soon as possible, if you can. As soon as Hackett told me you were coming I set up a workstation for you across from mine, and you have two asari scientists to assist in the translation."

"Ma'am, I think Commander Shepard needs to rest first," Steve says. "We had a ... rough ride here and we haven't eaten since we left."

"Oh! Of course. I'm sorry."

Shepard frowns at Liara, taking in the neat but tired appearance, the strain in Liara's eyes, the way she can't keep her eyes off the collection of scientists doing her work. "Liara, have you eaten anything today?"

Liara pauses, then says, "What day is it?"

The canteen is almost empty, and Steve and Vega join the short line to the kitchen. Two Alliance soldiers have followed them and are now stationed at the canteen entrance, watching Shepard wherever she goes. Shepard can't stop herself from checking the air control panel as she walks in: no tampering, and she can breathe with only the normal level of pain. Better than last time.

She sits down next to Liara at their chosen table and asks, "How are you, really?"

Liara rests her arms on the table and stares at her hands. "I'm tired, Shepard. I'm so tired."

Shepard half-smiles.

"I really am so sorry I couldn't come to see you." Liara looks up, her large blue eyes fixing on Shepard. "It was ... it was wrong. I should have taken the time, but I let myself get swallowed up in the work here. I was so ... I am so scared. I don't know what's happened in the rest of the galaxy. I have no information. Nothing. I need to know, Shepard. I need to find out of my homeworld is recovering, or if it's just a ... just a wasteland. Starting the mass relays is the only thing I can do right now. The only way I can stop myself from giving up."

"I understand," Shepard says. "We saved my world but lost yours. I should have come to help earlier. I just ... wasn't in a good place."

"Steve kept me informed. He didn't say much but I'm good at reading between the lines. And I spoke to Hackett." Liara smiles, sadly. "I had hoped we'd get the relays operational sooner than this. If we can find the Normandy, then –"

Shepard moves involuntarily, her wrist scraping across the table top. She stills and looks away, aware of Liara's eyes on her. The asari reaches out and takes Shepard's hand. "We will find them, Shepard."

Shepard shakes her head. "He – they are just a few among many. We need to get the relays operational so the galaxy can start rebuilding. You were right, Liara. All our focus needs to be here."

"You told me once not to lose hope, when I almost had. And we found the Shadow Broker, and Feron."

Shepard manages a smile, twisted. "Do you know where Feron is?"

"I presume he's still on the Broker's ship. I ... left him there to keep him – it safe." Liara's voice falls, and Shepard tightens her grip on the asari's hand. "I hope he is safe."

Steve returns to the table, carrying trays of food. "Vega is complaining about the lack of coffee," he says, taking a seat opposite Liara.

"We used to have some," Liara says, "but we ran out a few weeks back. There are shortages on most foods these days. I must admit, though, I've never understood the attraction you humans have for caffeine."

Steve chuckles, and starts eating. He's quite relaxed around Liara, Shepard notices, and she wonders how much the two of them have been communicating in the past few months. She looks around for James, and sees him standing at the drinks kiosk, glowering at the machine. She slips out of her chair and walks across to join him.

Vega looks up as she approaches. "Hey," he says, subdued. He bangs on the machine's datapad again, grumbling. "Can't get the damn thing to work."

Shepard presses a few buttons: the machine whirrs, and presents Vega with a cup of tea. He takes it, and says, "Thanks." He won't look at her.

Shepard takes a breath. "James, I wanted to apologise."

"For what?"

"For what happened at the space port. It was not your fault and what I said afterwards was ... well, I shouldn't have said it." She orders a cup of tea for herself and waits for the machine to sort itself out.

Vega fixes her with a long look, his hazel eyes still angry. "Should or shouldn't, Shepard, you still said it and you still believe it. You're blaming yourself for fifty thousand year old machines wiping out the galaxy. And you yourself told everyone we met to blame the Reapers, not themselves. Take your own advice. You've gotta stop wallowing."

She takes her tea and wraps her fingers around the hot plastic cup. "I know," she says at last, "I just don't know how."

Vega sighs. "If the Major is still alive, he'll be out there trying to find a way back."

"We don't know that," Shepard snaps. "We don't know anything."

"But we can hope." Vega is almost pleading.

Shepard bites down her angry retort, aware of her own near hypocrisy. She falls silent, staring into the tawny tea, steam rising to touch her face.

"Come on." Vega slings his arm around her shoulders and they rejoin Steve and Liara at the table.

The conversation shifts to the relay project, to the difficulties of keeping a frustrated, battered alliance together while half the galaxy lies in ruins and the other half can't even communicate. The tension Liara has been holding gradually relaxes as she talks, Steve convincing her to take a couple of hours off and stay with them in the canteen. Shepard listens to the three of them, talking, planning, reminiscing; skirting the boundaries of the most painful topics, always returning to the single fact that the mass relays are close to being operational.

Eventually Coates reappears to show Shepard to her quarters. Liara leaves in a hurry, returning to the main room after giving Shepard a quick hug. "Come and find me whenever you're ready to start," she says, "And be careful."


	9. Chapter 9

Six days later Shepard stumbles back into her quarters, half-blinded by an agonising headache that has set deep into her skull. The Cipher is a million voices speaking at once, eager to tell her how to translate a word, what to say, how to read a long-dead language spoken by long-dead people. The two Alliance soldiers assigned to her are anxious; she heard one of them send a quiet call to Vega, off-duty and probably flirting in the canteen with one of the scientists he met. Shepard ignores them, finds her way into the bathroom and washes her face, over and over, the cold water slapping her skin like a biotic punch. Was this what Kaidan endured – endures? She was one of the lucky ones, an L5x with no complications. What if he had survived the crash? The Normandy had been running low on medical supplies, worrying Chakwas before the final push. Joker had no more Vrolik's medication. If Kaidan had no pain relief ...

Can't think like that. Nothing she can do.

And isn't that the problem? For the past five months she's had to face the fact that from here on she can do _nothing._ She has taken down the Reapers, but she can't put Earth back together again. She can't shout at the mass relays until they kick back into life. She can't laugh with Garrus as he accidentally says something with several levels of meaning. She can't even breathe without enduring the knife-like jabs of twice-fractured bone and torn lung tissue deep in her body. She can't do anything without Steve or Vega at her side, encouraging her just by the fact that they're still alive, miracle of miracles. Hope is too damn painful but she's constantly being forced to face it. Over and over again – Liara's determination, her driven focus. It's like a slap in the face. Liara has taken on what Shepard couldn't do. The saviour of the galaxy has been reduced to a translator, one of many.

She stares at her own scarred face in the bathroom mirror, and whispers, "Fucking Reapers."

"Hey, Lola?"

Vega is hovering in the living room. She pushes away from the sink and goes to find him. He won't leave until he's made sure she's alright.

"Aren't you off duty?" she asks, flicking drops of water at him as she walks past.

He shrugs her question away. "Daniels said you didn't look so good. You feeling okay?"

"Fine," she says automatically. "The usual."

"Headache, huh?"

"Mm. Cipher doesn't like being woken up."

He tilts his head, considering her. "Want anything?"

She shakes her head, reminds herself to smile. "I'm fine. I just needed a break. Heading back in now."

"Maybe you should get some sleep."

"Can't," she says. "Liara thinks we're close to a breakthrough."

"Liara always thinks we're close to a breakthrough. You're barely away from that damn computer, Shep, you need a break."

"I can't," she says, more strongly, "We're this close to figuring it out." She doesn't say it, wouldn't admit to it, but Liara's drive has infected her. The tables have turned so completely; Liara is the catalyst, Shepard the reactor. It's odd, seeing awkward, socially inept Liara so completely sure of herself, managing matriarchs and krogan warlords with conviction and authority, keeping work going that would otherwise splinter into many fractured racial divisions: asari on one side of the floor, quarians on the other; turians here, krogan there.

It's everything Shepard worked for, and now she barely feels able to appreciate it. When she goes outside, stands in the long windowed corridors that link each section of the Archives together, she can see the ruined carcasses of Reapers floating like dead stars in the Martian sky. In the morning they burn with the golden glare of a forced dawn; at night they flame, legs lifted to the black like supplicants begging for mercy. When she can't breathe properly, she takes Garrus' rifle outside and shoots at them until her allowance of heatsinks is used up. The Alliance soldiers guarding her think she's mad. They're probably right, she thinks. Only Coates gives no indication of his opinion. He treats her with the deference and respect he showed her in the final mad black hours of banshee screams and falling dreadnoughts before the final assault.

She rubs one finger along the deep lines forming between her eyebrows and pats Vega on the shoulder as she passes him. It's getting easier to find words around he and Steve and Liara. Still hard to speak to anyone else. "I'm fine, Jimmy. I'll sleep in a few hours. Just want to get this translation finished. You're off duty: go and enjoy it."

Vega's grumbling follows her all the way back to the main research room.

#

"Liara."

Liara is at Shepard's side instantly, staring at the console in front of her. Shepard points, needlessly, to the reams of text she has just finished translating. Her heart is pounding unsteadily between her ribs. She swallows down hope and keeps her breathing steady. It could just be another false alarm. It might not work.

"Shepard ..." Liara whispers, shouldering Shepard aside to send the console's screen up into the main hologram in the centre of the room. A blueprint of the mass relay materialises, revolving slowly in place. Text that was once Prothean, now readable by the universal translators, flickers over the blueprint. Shepard stares at it, pressing her hands into the desk for stability. They've done it.

The room falls silent. Faces are lifted to the gently turning hologram. The Sol mass relay. Fixed. Shepard steps back, staring up at the results of her tired, Prothean-crashed brain. It's taken them five months, but they've successfully found, translated and recreated the mass relay technology.

"We did it," Liara says. Her voice echoes across the silent room. "We did it."

"Contact Hackett," Shepard says, voice cracked. "Contact the turians and asari and ... everyone."

Liara looks at her sharply. "We should keep this –"

"No," Shepard replies. "We do not keep secrets from our allies."

"Shepard, the war is over. We have to look to the future."

Shepard turns away from the blue hologram. She won't admit the hope, not yet. Don't let the walls fall down. She misses Steve and James beside her, in this room of unfamiliar scientists, Liara on the other side of a divide. Ever-cautious.

"We do not keep secrets from our allies, or they will no longer be allies. Contact everyone."

Liara does so, eventually. The scientists work with greater fervour, translating the blueprints into practical requirements. Coates organises the first shuttles to leave for the Sol relay, Hackett supervising the choice of scientists and engineers, workers who will restart the Sol relay and reunite the galaxy. Shepard can't bring herself to leave the main room, some quiet instinct reminding her never to leave the advantage unattended. She has no weapons, and her biotics still flicker and shudder if she even thinks of calling her amp to life. Doesn't matter. She won't let herself hope, but watches Liara's eyes brighten with every day the scientists make fresh progress, every day news comes in from Earth where the fleets are mustering, ready for the trip home. It's enough. Shepard tells herself: it's enough. Kaidan – the Normandy is gone, and she has done more than she thought possible. Soon the relays will be opened again, and the galaxy will continue in the long and painful process of rebuilding, and Shepard will ...

Well. She'll do something. Perhaps she'll commandeer a shuttle, and disappear. Perhaps that would be best.

The Archives are bustling now, representatives from every species joining Shepard's vigil in the main room. The scientist teams have sent word: the relay will be started today. It's hard to believe such a day has finally arrived.

Councillor Tevos has made it through, and Shepard is glad to see the Primarch again too. They don't speak, but she nods to him, and he salutes her, then starts a conversation with Admiral Hackett. Kirrahe is the most senior salarian present, and Shepard fights for composure when she sees him with only one horn, the second bearing an ugly scar that reminds her sharply of Mordin. Shala'Raan is restless, fresh patches across her suit. The quarian Admiral is shadowed by two marines, one in scarlet and gold.

And Wrex, solid Wrex, arrives and marches directly over to Shepard, peers into her face and says, "Hmph. You're looking better. Less like a dead vorcha, anyway."

Shepard can't help but smile. "Thanks, Wrex. Good to see you too."

"You ready to send us all home?"

She nods, crossing her arms. "You krogan take too much feeding."

They wait, the murmur of conversation dying down across the room as Liara raises the comm-link volume.

"_Initiating relay restart in five ... four ... three ... two ... one."_

Shepard looks over her shoulder. Steve and James are standing at the back of the room, out of the way of the dignitaries. Steve smiles at her. They will know soon. She will know. Shepard swallows down the jittering fear. She is still the Commander, and these people, these people she has brought together, are watching her.

What if the Normandy is lost on some backwater planet, crashed and dead?

What if she has endured five months of the denial she will live with for the rest of her life?

_I'm going to fight like hell for the chance to hold you again._

Don't let the walls fall down.

It's Coates who announces it. "_Success. The Sol Relay has started. All systems reading normal. Repeat: Sol Relay has started. All systems read normal. Standby for confirmation of secondary relay start-up."_

No one dares cheer yet. One relay without another is still a dead relay. An asari matriarch has volunteered to take a shuttle through the relay to confirm the theory that one relay starting up will kickstart the next. They wait, in silence. Shepard digs her fingers into her ribs and counts the number of people waiting, counts the number of blue dots on the hologram, counts the number of ways she's endured since the first day she stepped onto the Normandy and met Nihlus.

"_Success. Test shuttle has returned. Secondary relay has started. Relays confirmed. Mass relays are operational."_

Wrex's booming cheer flattens all the other celebrations. Tevos nearly collapses with relief, Kirrahe offering her an arm. Hackett turns away, omnitool flashing with messages, scarred face bright with relief. Liara looks across the hologram to Shepard, and smiles with such joy that Shepard can't help but return it. The celebration carries on, Wrex clapping Shepard on the shoulder, Steve and Vega pushing through the crowd to join her, Liara close beside them.

They've done it. The galaxy can recover, truly recover, and now Shepard can escape from this purgatory, find somewhere to live out her life in silence, with her ghosts. She hugs Steve, but avoids his too-sharp gaze. He and James know her too well now. Vega picks up Liara and hugs her, the asari surprised but laughing. They've done it.

Minutes later, Hackett is at her shoulder, and Shepard has never seen the man so happy. "Commander, the quantum entanglements came online with the relays. We have an emergency message from the Normandy. She's on Eden Prime, shipshape and ready to leave."

She can't breathe. In the roar of celebration, she swallows down the sickening fear and straightens her shoulders. Walls. Keep the walls high. Shepard opens her mouth to ask, but the words choke in her throat. Steve is at her shoulder, a familiar comfort.

Hackett continues, still smiling. "Your crew survived. All of them. The Normandy has been a priority since we knew the relays were coming back online. They'll be here in an hour."

Shepard presses her knuckles into her mouth. Breathe in. Breathe out. Is this what living feels like? Steve's arm is around her shoulders, Vega and Liara beside her. The Normandy is safe. Kaidan is coming home.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Just wanted to thank everyone who has taken the time to leave such lovely reviews for Silence. I started this story as my personal Shepard's emotional catharsis after the end of ME3, and to see so many readers wanting to know what happens next is just lovely and very encouraging. - TE_

* * *

Home. The Normandy is coming home. Shepard watches Hackett work through the cheering crowd of scientists, dignitaries and military to shake hands with the Primarch and Admiral Raan. She can't breathe, throat closing over and lungs pinched shut against the sudden influx of _fact_, of hope and reality and the future all crashing over her solid walls of long-held denial. She misses Garrus with a keenness that still surprises, still catches her unawares. If he were here they would be celebrating with true fervour. But James and Steve are at her side, Vega's hand over her shoulders, Steve leaning forward to rest his palms on the desk, staring intently into the hologram, showing the restarted, living mass relay. Liara is called away, to Councillor Tevos and the other asari matriarchs.

"We did it," Steve says, softly.

"Hell yeah," Vega crows. His joy is so powerful it unbalances Shepard. She shouldn't be this happy. "We got our galaxy back."

Shepard just shakes her head in disbelief, her fingers digging into her ribs, mouth clenched shut. Five months ago she stood on the Citadel and chose the genocide of millions over the control or union of all, and expected to die for her pains. She has not allowed herself to think of the future, because she has none. But now?

What does she do with a future – with the future she never dared consider?

She swallows against the dizziness, the ringing in her ears, and leans against Vega's solid shoulders for support. They will be here soon.

A movement catches her eye; Coates, looking straight at her. He has the familiar expression of a man listening to news he does not want to hear. One hand strays to his sidearm. Shepard straightens, heedless of the ongoing celebrations, and watches the Major. He says something into his comm piece, and pushes his way toward Shepard.

She hears the familiar crack-crack-crack of the M-8 Avenger, blunted by the thick walls of the Archives and the chatter of those around her, because she was expecting it. Coates hears it too, and by the way he stiffens beside her, Vega. Steve straightens, and looks to Shepard for confirmation. They have been waiting for this since she limped out of the hospital, months ago.

Coates is still trying to get through the crowd. He gestures to Shepard, pointing to the east door. She nods, and forgets everything but the knowledge of what she was and what she did. The ringing in her ears vanishes.

Wrex has noticed. Shepard waves him over: the krogan bulls through the crowd to join her. She turns to her two men. "Lieutenants, you and Wrex will get Liara and the mass relay data out of here."

"I'm not leaving you, ma'am," Vega says, watching Coates approach.

Her voice drops an octave. "Lieutenant, do as I say. Get Liara and the data to the eastern passages and keep her safe. Do not lose that data. Go now."

Wrex rumbles with satisfaction. "All today needed was a good fight. Let's go."

Steve salutes without saying anything and drags Vega away. He allows himself one quick concerned look at Shepard: she nods to him. The three men push through the crowd to Liara; a moment later the hologram vanishes. Shepard doesn't stop to see that they get Liara out, but turns to meet Coates. He holds out his hands: an earpiece in one, and in the other, a shotgun. Her own Wraith, as scarred and battered as she is, minus an explosive rounds mod.

Shepard takes the earpiece and sets it in place, staring at the shotgun the whole time. She wants to ask where he found it, how it survived the blood-scarlet explosion she created, but there's no time. Her fingers wrap around it with the familiarity she's relearned with Garrus' sniper rifle. She hates it.

"How long?" she asks.

"We've lost the north passage and landing zone," Coates says. "Batarians from north, west and south. They've got all the dignitaries pinned in here."

"And the east?" They're moving through the quietening crowd now, flashes of blue Alliance uniforms increasing through the more colourful dignitaries.

"Military quarters in the eastern sector. They're clear and holding."

"Good. Keep everyone in here." She stops talking and checks her shotgun, then says, "My apologies, Major. Where do you need me?"

Coates shakes his head, a wry grin on his face. "I'm taking orders from you, ma'am. The batarians are out for you, not me."

They reach the doors, and Shepard pauses to look for Hackett. He's approaching them, two guards at his shoulders.

"Admiral, the batarians have made their move," Coates says. "Doctor T'Soni and Shepard's old crew are moving to the eastern quarters for safety, with the mass relay data."

Hackett nods, as unsurprised as Shepard and Coates. "Shepard, take command here."

Why are they deferring to her? She's been out of action for months, barely speaking, hasn't shot anything worth shooting since ... since before. But behind Hackett she sees the eyes, the watching eyes, following her movements with hope. Commander Shepard, mascot and salvation. She doesn't like it at all. This is wrong.

For a moment she cannot move. The panic crashes into her, stuttering through her biotics, her heart: what is she doing, so willingly accepting fresh bloodshed, the rough grip of her shotgun in her bare hands, the hopeful, almost reverant eyes of all her allies? She told Hackett she was done, but now with her heart hammering in her chest and the panicky knowledge of her own inadequacy wracking her patched and glued body, she knows she won't ever be done.

She is Commander Shepard: that is all. There are batarians to shoot, and who else but Commander Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan, the destroyer of Aratoht, should shoot them?

She checks her shotgun again, out of habit, and accepts a few spare clips from Coates. They want Commander Shepard. They shall have her.

She remembers her voice. "Admiral, keep everyone in here. Set up choke points on each door and watch the air vents. We'll send any civilians we come across to this room, so tell the men to watch their targets. The Major and I will attempt to reach the airfield and secure the AA guns. We'll keep in contact."

Hackett salutes her. She blinks, and he gives her a small, almost apologetic smile, before turning back to address the waiting Alliance and turian soldiers.

Shepard slips through the door ahead of Coates, shotgun leveled down the long, silent hallway. The thick glass windows are punctured with bullets. Two Alliance soldiers lie dead by the door; four batarians further down the hallway. Shepard and Coates move past them without stopping.

"Had any communication from the batarians?"

Coates is surprised. "How'd you know?"

"Batarians like to boast." They move quickly down the corridor to the tram, passing several more dead – turian, in Alliance uniform, and batarian. A scouting party, not the main guard. She checks the turian for life, and moves forward.

"They sent a message twenty minutes ago, announcing their intention to take you and the mass relays."

Shepard snorts, but says nothing. She's been waiting for this attack for months – it's surprising that the batarians haven't attempted this before, but then, she wasn't Commander Shepard until she reappeared on Mars. She follows Coates onto the tram, and they rush across the divide to the other side of the base. As they flash past, Shepard sees a dead Reaper, resting like the skeleton of an ancient monster, washed by the Martian sands. She checks her Wraith and flicks her commlink on.

"Cortez, report."

"_On the move, Commander. All clear."_

"Copy that."

She turns to Coates, who looks so much more at home with an assault rifle resting in the crook of his elbow than escorting dignitaries through the Archives. "How many men do you have on the airfield?"

"Not enough."

She realises that she's wearing no armour, and neither is the Major. This could be difficult. Fifty-five minutes until the Normandy drops into orbit. If the batarians have the AA guns online, she will lose them all over again.

No.

The tram reaches the airfield section of the base: there is more gunfire, cut off with the ominous silence Shepard has heard too often. She and Coates slip through the lobby in silence, hugging cover, seeking any sign of the batarians. Nothing.

A small part of her mind notes the return journey, going back through the Archives with only Coates at her side, going to meet Kaidan instead of feeling his distrust at her back, the innate caution that first made her think he was someone worth knowing. She has always liked history. But perhaps not the history of Torfan. She could do without that.

They climb to the top walkway. The door into the security room is locked red. Coates sets his omnitool to unlock it – passcodes, encryption. Shepard waits, fingers restless on her shotgun. Her breath hitches in her throat, not sinking deep into her lungs. She thinks of Miranda's patient lessons, and checks her shotgun again. She has to stop doing that.

"Got it." Coates taps the door open – and is met by a rifle in his face. "Friendly!"

The soldier on the other side of the door collapses, sweat dripping down his face. "Fucking hell, sir."

Coates points to his own face. "Two eyes, Lieutenant. No more."

The Alliance soldier salutes, standing back to let Coates and Shepard through. "Sorry, sir, ma'am."

"Report." Shepard watches the security cameras as she listens. No Cerberus this time: one blessing, at least.

"We've pushed them back to the other side of the security hallway. Lost too many men in the process, though. Jackson and Santra are the only ones left. They hit us hard." He indicates to the battle zone around them: dead batarians, dead Alliance soldiers, scattered through the room. The batarians always move fast, but Shepard thinks she has not seen them move with such desperation before.

She looks away from the ugly scene. "Injured?"

"They're not taking prisoners, ma'am. Neither are we."

Shepard tears her eyes away from the cameras and notices the soldier's bloody forearm. "We're going through to the airfield. Reinforcements may be coming from the tram, so don't shoot them."

The soldier gives her a lopsided salute. "Jackson and Santra are holding them at the main security gun."

"Copy." Shepard tosses another clip to Coates, and together they make for the opposite door. The next room is empty, punctured by the heavy rat-tat of the big security gun. It fires directly down the hallway, and Shepard is relieved to notice that someone has updated its friend-foe VI to not target Alliance soldiers this time. She pushes forward, leapfrogging Coates through the room, cover to cover. At the hallway entrance, she spies two Alliance soldiers – human male, and asari commando – crouched behind fragile cover. Smoke from their spent thermal clips wreaths around their feet. Coates whistles sharply: the human looks up, relief spreading across his face. Shepard gestures for covering fire: the soldier nods, stands, and sets to firing down the hallway. She and Coates dash for the soldiers, ducking under the main gun's firing range to join them on either side of the hallway.

"Report," she snaps to the asari, giving her another clip.

The commando sets the clip into her heavily modified Mattock and shrugs one shoulder, blue eyes alight with defiant bloodlust. Her tattoos suggest an Eclipse background, but her armour carries the Alliance badge. "Batarians every-fucking-where, ma'am. No reports from the south or west passages. We've got them pinned down here, but they've still got control of the airfield and hangar. They're regrouping."

"We've got ships coming in within the hour, soldier. We're taking that airfield back."

The asari looks at Shepard. "What, the four of us?"

Shepard grins suddenly, the heady feeling of finally, finally doing her real job settling over the panic and unsettlingly-close fear. "You got something else to do?"

"Wouldn't mind a shower, Commander." The asari rubs one blood-spattered hand across her face and grimaces.

Shepard chuckles, breathing in the familiar scent of sweat and blood and gunfire. She has to admit, some part of her has missed this. She is what she is. "You can shower once we clear out the batarians."

"Fine. Let's go take that airfield. Never liked batarians anyway."

The four of them move quickly, and again Shepard fights the deja vue of knowing that not so long ago, she and Kaidan bickered their way through here while Liara did her job and the three of them began the long road to killing the Reapers. The heavy security gun punches bullets straight down the hallway, keeping the batarians pinned at the far end of the corridor as the four soldiers duck and roll from cover to cover. Shepard is the first to reach the other end: she crouches against the flimsy entrance and fires into the shadows. The asari moves ahead of her: there's a bang, a thump –

"Grenade!"

The explosion hits the asari full on: she screams, half-rolling, half-thrown out of cover as her shields collapse. Shepard leaps forward, fires again, Wraith kicking back into her arms with the fury of a charging krogan. The explosive round crashes into the waiting batarian. Coates takes his chance and dashes forward, dragging the asari back into cover.

"She okay?"

"I'm fucking fine," the asari yells, shaking her head with the compulsive flick of a concussed and angry soldier. One arm hangs useless at her side.

Coates and his following soldier duck out of the corridor into the next room, rifles flaring hot against the batarian advance party. Shepard hands the asari her fallen Mattock and they follow, the commando launching a harsh biotic attack. Six batarians, lightly armoured, have taken cover across the room. If this is all they have here, they must have a great number on the airfield – or else this is far smaller than Shepard initially thought, and the batarians truly are desperate.

The asari makes good use of her biotics, pulling the batarians out of cover for the others to shoot. Shepard is unbalanced, using her shotgun from a range longer than she is – was – used to. She thinks about trying her biotics, but having seen the consequences of her own inability, she decides it's safer to be a Vanguard without the Vanguard. She fires steadily, reloads from scavenged batarian weapons, and pushes forward where Coates and the others would have held back. She will take that airfield back.

Six batarians down. Shepard and her little crew move faster now, holding close together through the next few empty rooms.

"_Commander."_

"Come in, Steve."

"_Package secured. Reinforcements headed your way."_

"Move fast."

The next three rooms are chaos. A batarian sniper takes out Jackson within the first few seconds. The asari swears and launches fresh biotic attacks, ripping through the room with rage and adrenaline, tearing the sniper in half. Coates covers from the back, his assault rifle merciless against the furious batarians, blood from a glancing shot streaming down his head. Shepard draws on all the lessons she took from Thane and Kasumi, breathing lightly, ducking and weaving through cover, ripping batarians out of cover and sending them to their end with one swift bullet, a kick, a punch. She's uncomfortable out of her armour, dangerously exposed, but at the same time she's moving faster than usually possible. Her shotgun is everything, an old friend, an old enemy, part of her and half of her. She does not let the enemy pause, does not give the batarians a moment to think. They've recognised her: they know she's come to meet them. She lets the adrenaline run through her and forces herself to keep moving, against the rattling gasp of her lungs, the blood in her mouth. If she stops for a second, they will have her.

"I'm out!" The asari's cry is full of pain; she's blown her amp, and slumps behind a crate to recover. Coates runs to join her, Shepard covering his back with the heavy snarl of a bullet sent straight to a batarian chest.

Only two batarians between she and the airfield now. They're dug in deep, tucked behind thick stacks of crates, hard to get to. Shepard pauses, flicks a spent clip out and reloads. The dead batarian sniper lies close by: she waits for her chance, ducks out, grabs his rifle, and retreats back into cover. It's a good rifle, strong enough to punch through crates, and she's had plenty of practice recently.

Crack. Crack.

She learnt from the best.

Word comes from Cortez: reinforcements are close. Shepard rejoins the asari and Coates, and says, "Catch your breath, we're heading out again soon."

The asari just rolls her eyes, one hand pressed against the base of her skull. "Don't suppose you've got a spare implant?"

Shepard half-smiles, taking a seat beside her. "You wouldn't want mine. It's not pretty."

"What, L2? L3?"

"L5x."

The asari coughs. "No shit. Yeah, you can keep that one."

Shepard chuckles, but stops as pain stabs through her ribs, unused to such abuse after months of being a civilian. The taste of blood is harsh and familiar on her tongue. Doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. She could take down every batarian here on her own, and smile at the end of it.

But sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter. So she doesn't smile, doesn't let herself become the red-eyed master of death Cerberus wanted her to be – but she allows herself a tiny amount of satisfaction. She is herself, the parts of herself she still knows as Shepard, and that Shepard can still do her job.

Footsteps from the room they've just cleared break her moment of reverie. She lifts her Wraith out of habit, Coates mirroring her move.

"Commander?"

It's Vega, his own brutish shotgun in hand, batarian blood staining his uniform. He's followed by six Alliance soldiers, four turians Shepard recognises as the Primarch's personal bodyguard, and two more asari commandos.

Shepard stands up, leaning against the wall. She wipes her mouth with one hand, swallows down more blood. "Is Liara safe?"

Vega nods. "Wrex has her. Most of the krogan are there. No way are the batarians getting that data."

"Good."

Coates is busy organising his troops. An asari hands Shepard a breath-mask: the Mars airfield is merciless to oxygen breathers. She straps it on and grimaces against the sudden claustrophobia, tests the seals. Vega follows suit, still talking.

"But we've got a problem. The Normandy has just cleared the relay early. They'll be here sooner than we thought."

Shepard lifts her head to stare at him. "How soon?"

Vega shrugs his broad shoulders. "Fifteen minutes, Hackett said. We're trying to hail them but the batarians have knocked out comms. Cortez is on it, with that quarian marine."

"Kal'Reegar?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. We need to get this airfield cleared, give Cortez time to get communications back up." She glances around the determined faces of the soldiers she has collected. Final push. There's always another final push. Shepard wraps her fingers around her Wraith, tests her breathing, and nods to Coates. "Let's move."


	11. Chapter 11

The new team is fresh and eager to reclaim their pride and the Archives. Vega distributes fresh clips, while an asari tends the wounded commando. Coates is angry, Shepard thinks, noticing the set focus in his eyes, the way he moves with no nonsense. But he is a patient man – Anderson told Shepard the story of Coates' three-day stand, holed up inside Big Ben sniping anything that moved. Shepard admires patience, has always strived for it in a profession that often rewarded the hot-headed over the wise. They were lucky that they had Hackett and Anderson in control of Earth's reclamation: not some blood-eager younger man, or anyone else seeking revenge over survival. Coates will be Anderson's replacement one day, Shepard is sure of it.

Patience be damned. The Normandy is ten minutes out, the landing zone has to be cleared, the comm systems are down and she has no time for anger or fear or the unbalance threatening to tip her over every time she glances behind her and sees, not Garrus or Kaidan, but a half-dead asari and James' batarian-stained shoulders.

Shepard shoves two spare clips into her pockets, missing her ammo belt, and moves to the lift. The rest of her motley crew follow her: only the turians and one krogan are wearing armour, the asari commandos wearing light bodysuits with strong shields. None of the Alliance soldiers are armoured. A salarian bobs up behind Coates: Shepard catches sight of him and salutes. Major Kirrahe returns the gesture. By the state of his armour he has taken out several batarians already.

"Move it, people, we've got less than ten minutes to clear that landing zone."

"_Commander Shepard, come in."_

"Go ahead, Cortez."

"_Hostiles cleared from comm relay. Repairs will take me a few minutes. I'll let you know as soon as I can raise the Normandy."_

"Copy that. Let me know the minute you reach Joker." Words she never thought she'd say again.

She turns to face her Alliance force. "Alright people, no heroics today. Airfield is an unknown quantity. Our priority is to get to the AA gun on the far side of the landing zone. We don't know how many batarians we're facing, but from their attacks down the halls, I'm guessing no more than thirty. Snipers, keep them busy and stay in cover. Major Coates, Major Kirrahe, hold the lift and entrance. Do not let any more batarians get inside. Lieutenant Vega, you'll lead the asari commandos in a flanking action along the cliff-face. Use all the biotic power you can muster to keep them off-guard. The rest of us will punch through whatever resistance we find to get to that gun." She pauses, and catches the eye of the one krogan. He's a big old beast, scarred headplate and missing teeth all the reassurance she needs that he can get the job done. "I need a charger."

The krogan bares his teeth and lifts his monster of a shotgun. "You got it." He shambles forward to the end of the lift, Coates and Kirrahe behind him.

Shepard taps the lift controls and adds, as the lift sinks down to the ground, "If you find the batarian leader, engage but do not kill."

The rattle of guns and armour is all the answer she needs. The asari commandos charge up their biotics: she can feel the dark energy hissing close to her skin. The krogan bounces on his feet, rumbling a war chant deep in his chest. Shepard checks her shotgun.

The doors open to a storm of red sand and gunfire: the krogan roars and hurtles forward, smashing into a waiting batarian and sending him flying. Shepard follows, diving for cover behind a Mako, Alliance soldiers providing covering fire beside her as the krogan charges on, straight across the landing zone toward the AA tower in the distance. A shockwave tears past the Mako, tossing two more batarians into the air, their guns still firing crazily as they crash back to earth. The second's grace is all Shepard needs: she looks out, takes in the explosive battlefield. The batarians have spread out, clearing the landing zone of Alliance shuttles and crates, moving fast to cover each other. They are heavily armoured, well armed. She pulls back into cover as a sniper bead fixes on her chest – the bullet crashes past her and takes out an Alliance soldier. She's counted perhaps thirty batarians. Ten more than her own force.

Shepard rolls out of cover, leaps up and follows the krogan's path. The sand is gritty in her eyes and skin, tugging at her hair – she misses her helmet badly, but it doesn't matter, the batarian in blue armour has his assault rifle raised – she fires easily, the kickback softened by her own momentum, and the batarian falls. From the corner of her eye she sees Vega's familiar outline pushing forward along the cliff, providing covering fire for the asari commandos busy pulling, tearing, warping batarians in all directions. Shepard takes cover behind a crate, fires over it at the batarian about to take down a fallen turian, reloads. Coates and Kirrahe have the door locked down, the salarian standing tall while the human covers his flank. She doesn't have to worry about them.

The krogan is still moving, three batarians dead behind him, bullets puncturing his shields. He needs support. Shepard rolls, forgetting that she has no armour and the ground is damned uncomfortable, and runs forward, gesturing to her following soldiers to join her. They're halfway across the landing zone, the crack and snap of bullets tearing through the blood-red and blood-stained sand and air. She hasn't run this fast in months, she doesn't care – Shepard fires one-handed at a batarian aiming at the krogan's back, distracts him long enough for Vega to take him out.

The clamour of gunfire is subdued by another voice joining the conversation. Shepard looks up: the batarians have the AA gun firing, swinging it steadily around from the sky to the landing zone. For a moment Shepard can only feel a selfish relief that they've distracted the batarians from the innocent Normandy, then she hears the wet thud of a bullet hitting the turian running behind her. They're going down fast. Dimly she hears Coates' rough snarl ordering soldiers forward, doesn't care, she has to reach the krogan. Now Vega is almost parallel with her, both sprinting to join the krogan – his charge has taken him nearly all the way to the AA gun, but he's caught by two batarians, one with a long savage biotic whip – four more appear, racing ahead of Shepard to join their comrades. One of the asari commandos goes down: the second trips over her body, rolls, shouts at Vega to go on, she'll cover them from here.

The krogan swings his smoking shotgun like a club, battering one attacker out of his way – he's reached the AA tower, his battle cries silenced by the heavy punching snarl of the massive gun above him. Shepard fixes her eyes on the AA tower and forces her lungs to breathe, breathe, breathe. There's a batarian right in front of her, too close, she doesn't have time to reload, keep moving. He fires, and she feels the bullet sink into her arm, but hasn't got time to deal with pain, that will come later – her foot hits a loose rock and she falls, automatically tucks into a roll but the batarian still has her in his sights –

_Crack_.

The batarian arcs backward, blood flowering from one eye. Shepard clambers to her feet, mentally thanking the sniper behind her. Forward. Just keep going. She reloads her shotgun with her last clip.

The krogan is overwhelmed, shotgun lost, headbutting one of his attackers, shields fried, armour punctured in a dozen places. Shepard looks wildly around – she's scarce of friends, but there's Vega, alone, a scavenged assault rifle in his hands – he reaches the krogan and tears a batarian off him. The three of them are all that's left of the attacking force. Another batarian drops down from the tower ladder, falling half on top of James. The krogan is on his knees, Vega's rifle knocked out of his hands, five batarians surrounding the two of them – she's twenty metres away –

Without thinking, heedless of the fact that she has no armour, no shields, Shepard calls on her biotics. Energy flares through her bones; she's half-blinded, ears ringing, doesn't matter – she takes a breath and throws herself forward. Surrounded by the crackling fury of biotic power, she charges across the gap; smashes into the closest batarian, throwing her already-injured arm forward to cover the worst of the impact. Her biotics ricochet outwards, blasting the last five attackers away.

Shepard crash-lands on the batarian she just hit; her body rolls over out of sheer instinct: dazed, she shakes her head and thinks she probably won't do that again. Her amp burns hot in the base of her skull. She staggers upright, Wraith hanging useless from her good arm – the krogan and Vega are still standing against her crashing attack, the krogan out of sheer stubbornness, Vega only because he was half-shielded by the old beast. Her breather mask is smashed: she remembers to hold her breath, spits out a mouthful of blood and dirt and snatches a mask from the dead batarian at her feet. In swift, efficient motions, Vega takes up his assault rifle again and shoots the last living batarians.

Shepard presses the breather mask to her face and sucks in a breath. She nearly screams from the unforgiving pain. Chakwas is going to kill her. Miranda will kill her. She glances down at her arm: it's still attached, not bleeding out, all that matters. Her amp flickers, sending tendrils of energy down her arms. She breathes out and gestures with her shotgun at the AA gun ladder. Vega is already moving, the krogan covering his back as he clambers up the ladder. The heavy gun is still firing, keeping Coates and Kirrahe pinned by the door.

She levers herself to the tower wall and puts her back to it. The wind has died down: now she can see the carnage strewn across the landing zone. All the batarians are dead, or down. She sees two Alliance soldiers still stirring, one of the asari emerging from cover to limp toward the tower. Sweat trickles down Shepard's back, cold against her hot skin. She looks up at the sky, dust-red and dull in the evening light. Is this what hope feels like?

A dead batarian crashes down from the tower, unused pistol in one hand. The AA gun falls silent, a crashing emptiness in the air. A moment later, James slides down the ladder and salutes Shepard. He has a deep slice torn out of his right forearm, but otherwise seems well. "Gun secured, ma'am."

Shepard rests her head against the wall. "Well done, Lieutenant."

So this is what hope feels like.

"_Commander, comms still not operational. Normandy ETA, three minutes."_

The sky is empty. Shepard takes off her breather mask for a moment to spit fresh blood and says, voice dry against the cold wind, "Don't panic, Cortez. AA guns secured. We have time: do you need reinforcements?"

"_Negative, Commander, Lieutenant Reegar and I have things under control. Word from Hackett: reports from west and south entrances, all batarians down. Repeat, all batarians down."_

The krogan beside her snorts and picks at one of the dents in his bloodied armour. "No stomach for a fight."

"Copy that, Cortez. Tell Hackett we're secure. We'll meet Liara and Wrex back in the main room."

"_Aye aye, ma'am."_

The pain is beginning to creep over the adrenaline. If she could remember how to open her fingers she would drop the Wraith on the ground. She is so tired. Major Kirrahe emerges from his cover and begins to pick his way across the battlefield, meticulously checking each body for signs of life. Coates is down, propped up against the wall, uniform torn and a bullet through his side, but breathing.

The last asari reaches the tower, and salutes Shepard. "Orders, ma'am?"

Shepard forces herself to stand straight, and says, "Secure the gun until reinforcements arrive, soldier. Good work."

The krogan, unfazed by the scattered shots across his armour and fresh tear in his headplate, says, "I'll stay here until Wrex sends more. Don't feel like losing this gun again."

Shepard thinks that he deserves at least a salute, at best a good meal and a medal, but settles for a weary nod. "You're a hell of a fighter."

"Never thought I'd see a soft-bellied human take down five batarians. You're alright, Shepard." The krogan rumbles away to join the asari by the tower ladder. James, having finished his check of the attackers' bodies, rejoins Shepard. He's still running high on adrenaline and bloodlust.

"Fucking batarians," he says, "We do everything we can to save this galaxy for them and they still come after you."

Shepard says nothing, but moves forward across the battlefield, the landing zone, toward Coates and the lift. Vega follows, tugging at his face mask with one torn hand. The sky is still empty.

"We got comms back yet?" he asks.

"No." She diverts to Major Kirrahe, the salarian inspecting a dead batarian with his omnitool. She's almost beside the Major when he leaps back, reaching for his pistol – the dead batarian lifts one arm and shoots. Kirrahe falls back, and Shepard looks down into the four eyes of Balak. He fires his pistol again.

Something throws Shepard aside: blinded by pain, she cries out and lands on all fours, Wraith landing with a thud beside her. Balak is up and running, stumbling over the bodies of his dead brethren. Another body hits the ground beside Shepard. She turns her head, blinks until she can see straight, and sees Vega grimacing, one hand pressed to his side. The panic that hits is so instant, she can't move. The ground tilts beneath her: not now, not now. She will not lose her crew now.

Balak.

She wonders if there will ever be a moment where she doesn't endure pain again. The Commander hauls herself upright, scavenging for her Wraith. Concentrate. Kirrahe is beside Vega, long fingers quick with medigel. He looks up briefly to gesture at Shepard: she nods, does not let herself look at James, bleeding from the shot he took for her – not now, not now. She will not fall apart.

Shepard sucks in one sharp breath against the splintering agony through her ribs, and chases after Balak. He's through the jammed door, Coates half-sitting beside it, still firing his assault rifle, one-handed, wildly, after the escaping batarian. The lift is rising, Balak at the controls, and she tries to call on her biotics again. Energy hisses across her skin and dissipates. She throws herself forward, calling on the last non-reserves of non-energy she demands her body gives her, dashes past Coates, and jumps for the rising platform. Her fingers catch the edge – it's still going up, she'll be crushed against the door: again she demands it, and her biotics kick back in long enough for her to pull herself over the edge and roll to safety. Her foot catches on the junction between door and lift: there's an awful crunch as something in her ankle snaps, but she's on the lift.

Balak fires, but he's either wounded or scared and his shot goes wide – she throws the last of her biotic power out at him, knocking the batarian off his feet. She crawls, then limps toward his sprawled body, and levels her shotgun. Four eyes stare into two.

Balak snarls. "Finish what you started, human."

She says nothing.

She could kill him now, and no one would care. She could pull the trigger and that would be the end of it. The batarians would never have a strong leader like Balak again. Beaten, lost, scared, they would roam the galaxy with no friends, no reason to fight or survive except for that same driving goal that sent her skittering from planet to planet, seeking any way at all to stay alive. Stay alive.

Balak has killed humans, sabotaged and schemed and murdered, and now James lies bleeding in the red Martian sands, with a bullet in his side that should be in hers. She could kill this reckless, desperate batarian now, and no one would care. She would be lauded for it.

Shepard stares down at him, this man who fulfills all the reputation his kind has earned: scum, villain, cruel, death-seeking. She has killed most of his followers. Their bones will bleach beside those of the dead Reaper that mocks her dreams. What is one batarian more or less?

She thinks, suddenly, of the beautiful and alien understanding of the geth consensus, of EDI's myriad of questions, her decision to seek a path of altruism and love. The guilt rises up so suddenly, her hand would shake if she let it.

Balak doesn't dare move, the ugly barrel of Shepard's Wraith pointed at his head. He does not blink.

She licks her lips and says, "Did you really think you could control a mass relay?"

Balak snorts. "I could have controlled them all."

She considers this, and realises that, perhaps, he is right. Times have changed.

"Finish what you started, Shepard."

The lift has stopped. Shepard smiles, and she sees the first hint of fear in Balak's dour face.

"I will," she says.

#

The walk back through the Archives is long and painful: but the past years have taught her to endure, so she endures. The central room is alive with military, the dignitaries surrounded by more guards than Shepard can count. When she appears, pushing a bloodied, disarmed batarian ahead of her, there are cries of fear and anger, guns appearing from all quarters. Shepard ignores them all, pushing Balak straight across to the central hologram. She has to do this now, when she stinks of the battlefield, when she can hardly see straight and she has a bullet in her arm, when her amp is burning a new scar into her neck. Let them all see, just for a moment, what this has cost her. They wanted the saviour of the galaxy, and they shall have her.

"Stop," she says, as Balak reaches the central hologram. No one moves, Hackett holding off the Alliance from taking Balak. She does not take her eyes off this desperate enemy, but says, "Where is Liara?"

"I'm here, Shepard." Liara appears, slightly breathless. Wrex is still beside her, still following orders.

"Liara, I need you to write something." She pauses, and now Balak can't see her, takes a moment to breathe. Liara has a datapad ready.

"Write this: The Mass Relays are, from this day forward, to be neutral territory. Any attack on a relay will be met with swift and thorough retribution from the Council, and the Spectres. No race, species or group shall attempt to control, interfere, restart or develop the mass relays. All species will nominate a neutral group of military scientists to maintain and guard the relays, together with all other species. Any attempt to sabotage or destroy the relay guards will be met with swift and thorough retribution from the Council and the Spectres." Shepard thinks for a moment, and adds, "If any species does not agree to this new law, they will be methodically and patiently stripped of everything they hold dear." She waits until Liara stops typing, and says, "Councillor Tevos, if you would sign this new agreement."

The asari Councillor, in silence, strides forward and takes the datapad from Liara: presses her hand against it. Shepard keeps her shotgun on Balak, and says, "Admiral?"

"Shepard ..." Hackett takes the datapad, but looks deeply unhappy. She waits for him to overcome the natural suspicion of a man desperate to protect his planet at all costs. She hopes she does not have to remind him of the value of alliances. He signs it.

Wrex takes the datapad next, and without hesitating, presses his hand to the screen. He hands it to the Primarch, who takes one look at Shepard, and follows suit.

Admiral Raan is less convinced. "Commander Shepard, you have no authority to demand we all unite in this manner. We have done all you asked of us, and –"

Shepard's voice drops. "I saved your galaxy, not just your planet, Raan. Would you like me to take them both back?"

There is a short, ugly little silence. Raan signs the datapad, and returns it to Liara. The asari brings it to Balak, holding it out for him to press his hand to. The batarian does not move.

Shepard is running out of patience. She does not let herself think: the Normandy will be here any minute, the Normandy will be here. She presses the shotgun into Balak's shoulders.

"Sign it," she says.

"No."

She kicks out with her injured foot: the batarian falls to his knees and she presses the barrel into his head.

"Sign it."

Balak laughs, an exhausted, half-hysterical double-sound that rackets across the uneasy room. "Human, all you ever do is talk. You convinced me to give you my ships when I had a gun to _your_ head. You threw away my people to save the entire galaxy and now you won't even look me in the face. You're too damned soft, too fucking broken to ever go through with your threats. So kill me now. I won't sign your idealistic little law, Shepard. You couldn't shoot me if you wanted to."

The silence in the room is so tight, Shepard can hear her heart beating erratically in her chest. She contemplates the back of the batarian's skull. It would be very easy to pull the trigger. She doesn't.

"You're right, Balak," she says, so softly she can feel everyone straining to hear. "I am the saviour of the galaxy. Idealistic. That's a good word. I destroyed Aratoht to save the rest of us. But do you know what I was before I ever became the Saviour of the Citadel, Spectre, Defeater of Saren, the Saviour of the Galaxy?" The proclaimed titles are bitter on her tongue. She is aware, distantly, that she only has a few more seconds before her body gives out.

Shepard leans forward, her words only for the batarian's ear. "Before all that, I was the Butcher of Torfan."

Balak flinches.

Her blackest moments of deepest vitriolic ruthlessness feel like three lifetimes ago: she does not recognise the cold-hearted woman who emerged from Torfan, and does not care to. But she is still that woman: she knows, and knows without running from it any more, that if she must, she will kill every batarian in the galaxy to keep the peace.

They stand for a moment, Shepard towering over the batarian on his knees, and then he leans forward, and presses his hand to the datapad.

At once Shepard lifts her shotgun away. Three marines dash forward to take Balak into custody. The metallic taste of blood is rich on her tongue, and she looks away from the flickering blue hologram. She takes three steps across the room and holds her Wraith out to Hackett. He takes it. She looks him in the eye and says, "I am done."

She turns away, unsettled by the ease with which she has become Commander, Butcher, Saviour. She will not be their leader, their god. The crowd shivers under her stare, as if scared that her eyes will scorch. Their reverence makes her sick: she flicks a weak, one-handed gesture as if to throw it all away. She is done. She cannot do this any more. She has been Commander Shepard, and now she will never be again. Her breath comes short and fast, and she pushes straight through the crowd for the northern exit. Get out. Get out get out.

The last of the soldiers step aside: Shepard limps straight through the door into the northern corridor. The door shuts behind her on the sudden roar of argument and cheering and relieved celebration. She lifts her head to breathe in against the cracking pain, thankful for the silence of the empty corridor –

He is waiting for her.

He is thin, lines of exhaustion and stress scoring his face. His hair is greyer than it was five months ago. He stares at her with the battered, hungry gaze of a man too long away from home. She thinks, _aha, it's happened, I've finally cracked_. Even with the constant assurances of Hackett and Cortez that the Normandy was coming, she realises that she did not truly believe them. Hope is hope, and she had no room for it.

She can't move, words lost, thought lost, the last strands of pride tearing away from her bones. The red haze of the Citadel's sour end flickers across her vision and for a moment she can't see anything but the blazing light of her chosen, denied end. She closes her eyes against the blackness of the past five months, and opens them again. He is still standing there.

Kaidan takes three strides, and gently, lightly, touches her face.

She cries.


End file.
